


I'm sure I used to be (so free)

by allirica



Series: we can be heroes verse [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, BAMF Allison, BAMF Sheriff Stilinski, BAMF Steve Rogers, BAMF Stiles, Blood and Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Established Relationship, Explosions, Gore, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Corpses, Guns, Heavy Angst, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Marvel Universe, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experiences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SHIELD, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Weapons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-07 13:26:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 57,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18874096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allirica/pseuds/allirica
Summary: "It won’t be easy.  It’ll be dark and painful and it’ll require doing things that Stiles would never normally consider.  It might mean sacrificing innocent people and being hated for a while.  But that’s what saving the world really means.  The path to Hell is paved with good intentions, sure, but the one to Heaven is paved with bloody, vicious glory.He knows now what it means to be a hero.  It means doing things that may not feel right, things that the world might struggle to forgive, even if those actions are to save them all.  It means emptying himself out, carving out everything he used to be to make room for something darker, something stronger."***part of the 'we can be heroes' verse, direct follow up to 'charge me up (like electricity)'.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Inell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inell/gifts).



> a couple of things regarding this part of the verse: this fic will be shorter than the previous two, and I'll be updating a little more slowly as well, so please bear with me. 
> 
> Some warnings apply: this is very much a darker fic than the others, primarily because it deals directly with mind control. There is NO physical sexual intimacy between Julia and Stiles, but there is non-sexual intimacy, and he is being manipulated and controlled by her, in a way that very much messes with his feelings and makes him feel loyal to her. He considers himself as belonging to her. 
> 
> Basically, a lot of this will be creepy and uncomfortable, so please take that into consideration before reading. I've also tagged for other possible triggers and will include more in depth warnings at the beginning of chapters where I feel they are necessary. 
> 
> Other than that...I hope you enjoy, and please do comment and give feedback, I really appreciate it <3

It’s snowing.

Stiles sits in an armchair by the window, tucked into the corner and away from the glass so that no one can see into the house. So no one can see _him_. There’s no heating and no insulation; cold seeps through cracks in the wall and the gaps in the old window frame, permeating the house with a constant frosty chill. 

Despite his three layers and the blanket tucked over him, Stiles’s breath still mists white and his fingers feel a little bit numb. But he prefers it up here; downstairs, with the others, it just gets to be so _much_ sometimes, crowded and stifling. He hates being underground and after a couple of weeks, the cabin fever is too intense, itching at his flesh like a scab. He needs windows, he needs _light_ ; he needs to be reminded that the world outside is still turning, even if he’s not a part of it right now.

It’s Christmas.

He wonders what the team are doing, wonders if his dad still flew out to spend Christmas with Melissa and Scott. He thinks about hot, indulgent food and flowing booze and laughter. Thinks about Steve’s lips on his with mistletoe hanging above them and snowball fights with Allison and Clint. 

He’s not miserable, exactly; he has Julia and it’s not like he’s _completely_ cut off from the outside world. He’s doing what is right and, no matter how difficult it is, the knowledge that it’ll be okay in the end is comforting. But he does feel lonely. He misses his family, his friends, he misses _Steve_.

He sighs, leaning his head back against the old, dusty armchair. The leather is cold and has split in several places, stuffing spilling out of the cracks. It smells faintly of smoke and cat hair. 

He wonders who it used to belong to. He hasn’t asked Julia where it had come from, but he thinks it’s probably furniture left in the building from years ago; there’s a few odd bits and pieces in the rest of the house, forgotten and unwanted, decrepit from years of waiting alone in a cold, decaying building. He imagines an old man, puffing away at a pipe with a fat ginger cat on his lap, a fire crackling to his right as he watches snow outside the window, the same way Stiles is doing now.

But the fireplace is cold and empty, the mantel sagging and bricks crumbling in the hearth. They can’t light any fires; they can’t risk drawing attention to their sanctuary. 

He hears the stairs creak, listens to the groaning of old, rotted floorboards as the thud of boots marks a path towards him. He doesn’t turn and he doesn’t flinch when a hand settles on his shoulder.

“Have you been up here since breakfast?” Julia asks softly. 

He nods. “Yeah. The snow is nice. I like watching it, you know?”

“It’s beautiful,” she agrees, thumb stroking the arch of his neck. “But you’ve been up here for hours. You must be freezing.”

Stiles shrugs slightly. “It’s not so bad.” 

She circles the chair so she’s stood in front of him, hand still on his shoulder. She’s wearing dark jeans tucked into tall boots and a charcoal knee length wool coat; with her leather gloves, rich green scarf and matching winter hat, she looks fashionable but bland, the colors subtle enough to blend her in with every other pedestrian in the city bundled up against the cold, but she’s not being so obviously clandestine as to wear all black or too many accessories as a disguise.

“You’ve been out?” Stiles asks.

Julia uses her teeth to tug off one glove, then peels off the other and stuffs them in her pocket. She moves to sit sideways on his lap, hand moving to cup his jaw. 

“I’ve been making friends,” she replies.

He nods. “Anyone useful?”

Her laugh is quiet, warm and light like a summer breeze. It feels at odds with the iciness of the room, the coldness of her fingers against his flesh. “All of them,” she replies. “I wouldn’t waste my time otherwise.”

Her hair tickles his face. It’s cut shorter, chopped just above her collarbone, and she styles it so it’s sleek and straight instead of the curls she’d sported as a SHIELD recruit. She’s dyed it, too, but not anything as obvious as platinum blonde or red; it’s a few shades darker than its previous glossy chestnut, closer to black now, but with lighter shades threading through it from a box highlight kit. She’s changed her eyebrows, grown them in thick and fills them in with pencil before leaving the house, smoothing their natural slender arch into a completely different shape, and it changes the look of her whole face.

It’s something they learned from SHIELD; huge disguises, like completely different, distinctly dyed hair colors, prosthetics, large amounts of accessories, tend to draw attention when the trick is to be able to disappear into a crowd and go unnoticed. Subtle changes work better in that regard. 

Stiles’s own hair is cut shorter – not quite the buzzcut he’d preferred as an early teen, but short on the sides and a little longer at the top. 

“Darling,” Julia murmurs. “Come downstairs. You’re cold.”

He nods; she’s right, he’s freezing, the ice starting to gnaw at his bones, and he’s ready for hot food and to get to work. She smiles and her lips are red, the same dark shade as the gleaming polish on her fingernails. She leans in, presses her mouth to his forehead in an affectionate, reassuring gesture, and the buzzing headache at the back of Stiles’s head fizzles out, replaced with cool, serene happiness.

She stands and holds out her hand. Stiles sets the blanket aside and links their fingers, getting to his feet. It’s starting to get dark outside and soon it will be impossible to see upstairs since the house doesn’t have any lighting. He casts one last look at the flakes slanting down in a frantic flurry outside and then turns away from the window, following Julia out of the room.

The house is an old brownstone, tall and narrow, tucked neatly between two other townhouses in an equally miserable, abandoned state. The one to the left is currently home to some squatters; the one to their right had been bought out shortly before their arrival and is waiting for renovations that will never come. Julia had ensured no one would be disturbing them.

Three floors of empty rooms. No running water, no electricity, no heat. The wallpaper is hideous, some vintage monstrosity that’s peeling away from the plaster, filthy with dust and grime and graffiti left by previous trespassers. Mould seems to creep in from every corner, slowly swallowing up the house and filling it with a thick, musty smell. The air feels perpetually damp, chilly and uncomfortable, sticking in Stiles’s lungs. The carpet had been ripped out a long time ago, leaving scratched, dull wood, rotted through in too many places to count. The windows have stayed a constant since the house was built; no insulation, no double glazing, and the glass hangs badly in old, sagging window frames. When the wind blows, it seems to shake the whole building, rattling the windows and sliding cold, ruthless drafts through any gaps or cracks, filling every inch of space. 

It’s the kind of place that Stiles could easily imagine to be haunted, full of echoes of past occupants, miserable and lonely and, on days as grim as this, creepy as fuck. But instead it’s silent, empty, a chasm held between four walls, it’s history forgotten, lost in the crumbling bricks and mortar.

No one pays attention to it, which is why it’s such a perfect hiding place. After all, for years it had been a cover for Hydra, and now Viper, and it’s never been even close to appearing on SHIELD’s radar.

They’re less than ten miles away from SHIELD HQ, but the interior of the house feels so isolated that they might as well be halfway across the world.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and have to walk single file in the narrow, claustrophobic corridor that connects the main hallway to the galley kitchen. Julia opens a door to their right and they make their way down a set of steep concrete steps, lit only by the pen torch in Julia’s hand. 

At the bottom is a single bunker door. Julia punches a code into the keypad and it creaks open; they both step through and Stiles makes sure the door shuts and locks behind them, checking the alarm system is running before he follows Julia deeper into the basement.

It’s more of a bunker than a base, a large, square underground hiding place, hidden underneath the three empty brownstones on the nondescript street. The fact that it had been built and kept secret so flawlessly is remarkable, but Hydra has always been particularly skilled at burying themselves deeply enough to make it near impossible to dig them back out. 

“It belonged to my fiancée,” Julia had told him when they first arrived. “I discovered it when I was digging up everything I could find on her. After SHIELD and Hydra both fell, this bunker was forgotten, along with a few others in the city; I doubt anyone knows they even exist now. No one will bother us here.”

Unlike the houses above it, the bunker has electricity, running water, even heating. It’s sparsely decorated, utilitarian rather than comfortable, with a small room lined with metal bunks, a bathroom that reminds Stiles of his high school locker room, with a shared shower facility and narrow toilet cubicles, and a tiny kitchenette area. One wall is an armory, the corner converted into a makeshift gym area. Across the other wall is a bank of computers. 

The technology is slightly outdated by Stark’s standards, but still more advanced than commercial computers, sleek and fast and, more importantly, untraceable. Theoretically, anyway; Stiles knows to be careful, to limit their use of the computers, since Tony will be looking for any possible traces of Stiles and the guy is a genius, after all.

Stiles tugs off his heavy sweater, leaving him in a Henley and plaid; with the portable heater to his right spewing hot, slightly stale air into the room, he quickly warms up. The sudden switch from the frozen house to the heated bunker makes his skin itch slightly. Julia removes her own winter clothing, hanging them up on a row of hangers near the door. There’s something oddly domestic about it, the way she tucks her boots neatly against the wall and walks with socked feet towards the kitchenette, tossing her gloves onto the counter.

“Coffee?” she asks.

Stiles nods and sits down on the battered couch, pulling his knees up to his chest. He watches as she prepares a pot of coffee and pours some between two mugs; she adds a dash of sugar and cream, just how Stiles likes it, and then holds his cup out to him. He takes it, curling his fingers around hot porcelain.

She’s not Joanna. He looks at her and, even forgetting the changes she’s made to her appearance, he can’t see a hint of his friend in her. There’s none of their easy, dry banter, none of that quiet support and kinship they’d forged at SHIELD. He knows that it’s because, while her story about her fiancée is true, the rest of it had all been neatly cultivated, her personality adapted to reel him in. That’s not really who she is. 

It’s slightly unsettling, yet he can’t find it in himself to focus too much on that shadow of discomfort. Julia isn’t Joanna, but she _is_ his anchor, reminding him of why sacrifices like his are important in the long run, reminding him that he isn’t _alone_. He’ll never be alone when she’s at his side. Now he’s no longer compelled to forget her control, he can sense it if he really tries, if he digs at that little slither of _not him_ coiled at the base of his skull. 

It should be scary, it should feel wrong, but it doesn’t; he can feel her, feel her affection and gratitude and trust. She understands him in a way he’s rarely felt before and her presence, both at his side and in his head, is reassuring. Logically, he knows he’s here because he _has_ to be, because she’s controlling him, but having his choice stripped away from him isn’t a horrific violation, like he’d thought before he even knew she already had him.

How could he feel anything but content when that cool, soothing serenity fills him, smoothing out all of his rough edges and chasing away anything negative in his mind?

“You’re quiet,” she remarks, sitting in the armchair. She curls her legs underneath her. Her socks are pink and fuzzy and the sleeves of her sweater are tucked over her hands, fingers barely peeping out where they cradle her own mug of coffee. She looks younger like this, softer and relaxed. 

_She’s dangerous_ , Stiles thinks, but it doesn’t alarm him. She’s not dangerous to him. Not now he’s one of hers.

He considers her comment for a moment. Normally, he can talk about everything and nothing all at once, can fill silences as easily as he breathes, but he doesn’t have anything to say right now. Nothing relevant to her, anyway.

“What would you like me to say?” he asks finally.

She hums, smiles slightly. “How about ‘Merry Christmas’? Say it.”

“Merry Christmas.” The words are tugged from his mouth, like someone else speaking them with his own tongue. He blinks. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to that feeling. 

Her smile widens. “Merry Christmas, darling. I know this isn’t how you imagined spending Christmas but…I’m glad you’re here with me.” 

“I am too,” he replies. “Where are the others?”

“I sent Andrzej, Erin and Chase on an errand,” she replies. “They should be back soon.”

“I could have done it.”

She reaches out, gives his knee a fond pat. “I know, Stiles. But we need to limit the time you spend outside of the bunker for now, remember?”

He nods because, despite how much he itches to go outside, to _do_ something, Julia’s right; it’s too much of a risk to go outside just for errands. Both Steve and SHIELD are looking for him, as intent as they were when Stiles first left the tower, and it’s not worth taking the chance of being caught over something that isn’t a huge priority. He has his own job to do soon, but for now, he just has to lie low and remain patient.

“Are they getting close?” he asks, concerned.

She smiles slightly. “Of course not,” she replies, waving her hand slightly, dismissive. “But they managed to find a Viper holdout. Just a few members, no one important, but they’re focused. They’re finding and bringing in anyone involved or even suspected to be involved with Viper to try and get information.”

Stiles frowns. “The members they found, they won’t tell them anything about you, right?”

“Darling,” she laughs. “They don’t _know_ anything about me. Only a very few of the… _VIP_ members know who I am. And if the Avengers ever get close to them…well. They have pills that will take care of that.”

Stiles looks at her, a little awed. He doesn’t know the extent of her power, doesn’t know how many people she can control or for how long, but he knows her gift must be incredible. To have anyone who might pose a risk to Julia and their bunker under her thrall, ready to kill themselves before letting any information slip…she’s thought of everything, planned for every possible outcome. 

He’d discovered that she hadn’t created Viper; that was the work of a few like-minded, anti-Inhuman assholes banding together. What started as some vitriolic videos and heated rants spanned into a much larger group, becoming an organization with numbers spreading across the globe, funded by some pretty important people behind the scenes. Julia had simply taken advantage of them, taking the reins of the organization to benefit her own goals. 

“They won’t give up,” Stiles says quietly. “Steve…he’s stubborn as hell. He won’t stop until someone _makes_ him. He’ll keep looking for me.” 

“I know. That might actually be a good thing.” Julia takes a sip of her coffee. “After all, if he’s so focused on _you_ , he’ll be paying less attention to other things. It allows us some breathing room.” 

“I could make a good distraction,” he agrees, nodding slightly. 

“And if he gets too close, if he threatens us, _me_? Our goal?” 

Stiles takes a deep breath. “Like I said, he won’t stop unless someone makes him. I’ll do it, if it comes down to it.”

Julia leans forward, gently gripping his chin. Her thumb drifts along his jaw. “Stiles, I need to know that you will do whatever it takes.”

He swallows. “I won’t kill him. I could never…I _love_ him. More than anything. And he’s not a bad person, Julia. He doesn’t…I won’t kill him.”

She tips her head slightly, dark eyes sharp, assessing. “You will,” she says and her voice dips low, soft and intoxicating.

It wraps around him, cocoons him like cool silk, filling the room and his lungs until he’s full of her, heart pounding to her beat, body leaning instinctively towards hers. He can taste her in the back of his throat, feels her slide between his ribs and carve out a home in his heart, filling him and filling him until he doesn’t know where he ends and she begins. 

Frosty silver swirls into her irises, locking his gaze to hers. “You will,” she repeats and the words vibrate through him, engrave themselves into his bones and his gut and his brain. “If you have to kill Steve, you _will_. Won’t you, Stiles?”

“If I have to, I’ll kill Steve.”

“If _any_ of them, SHIELD, The Avengers, _anyone_ , stand in our way, you’ll help me end them. We’ll destroy them together.”

“We’ll destroy them.”

She smiles and sits back, her thrall sliding back like fog, folding back into her. Her eyes return to their usual dark brown.

“Thank you, darling,” she says softly.

Stiles blinks, twitches slightly as her power releases him, but he can feel her instructions sink into him, deeper than flesh and bone, biting right down into the core of him. He won’t have a choice but to obey that command if he ever faces a situation that calls for it. 

He knows there are other things tucked away neatly in his brain, her control waiting for the moment that calls for it. He wonders just how many compulsions are locked away, hidden from even him until it’s time for him to carry out her orders. It’s a little unsettling; he can’t help the uneasy feeling at not being able to trust his own brain.

But he trusts Julia. He trusts that she’s doing the right thing. That _they’re_ doing the right thing. In the end, it will all be worth it.

“How long have I been yours?”

Julia looks at him. Her eyebrows pull together slightly. “Does it matter?” she asks softly.

Stiles considers for a moment before he shrugs, shaking his head. “No.” 

Because it doesn’t; what matters is that he _is_ hers, what matters is going forward and reaching her goal together. But he can’t help the sting of curiosity coiled around his sternum.

It’s clearly the right answer because she smiles. “After our first mission,” she replies. “But I was interested in you before then. Originally, I had plans for Allison.” 

“She’s strong,” Stiles agrees, nodding.

“Absolutely. She was probably the strongest recruit. Her skills would be a huge asset. But, no, I wanted her because of her connections to Hydra.”

He frowns. “What?”

“Her aunt,” Julia says. “Katherine Argent. She was a Hydra double agent. After SHIELD fell and Hydra was exposed, her cover was blown. Christopher was the one to find her, but he didn’t arrest her; he let her go. Didn’t you know that?”

Stiles shakes his head. It makes sense; he’d wondered what caused the Argent to fall apart, why Allison never talked about her aunt and why she was distant from her parents. He’d never expected Hydra to be involved. Allison never told him and that hurts more than he’d like to admit. 

“Ah,” Julia murmurs, a sympathetic smile touching her lips. “I thought you knew. I’m sorry. But I wanted to use Allison to get close to Kate Argent and Hydra. Then I saw you in training and I saw all of your potential as well as your connection to the Avengers. You could watch them for me, find out their weaknesses, access their security, everything I needed, and they’d never suspect you. So I started to get close to you. And then I saw you on our first ever mission and you were magnificent, Stiles. You have so much beautiful potential locked away inside of you and I don’t think you even realize it. I knew then that you were exactly who I needed. I took your mind after that. I’m sorry I made you forget; I wish I could give you those memories back, but I can’t.”

Stiles nods slightly. “Why didn’t you take Allison, too?”

“Too risky. She was growing too close to Romanoff and Barnes. I couldn’t take the chance of them noticing something was amiss with her. I lost a potential connection to Katherine Argent, but I found Ward instead.” 

He looks down at his coffee, quiet for a couple of minutes as he mulls that over. Then he asks, “What did you make me do? When I didn’t know about you? Did I…kill anyone?”

“Oh, darling, no. You just kept an eye on SHIELD and the Avengers for me, learned how to get into the security system, that sort of thing. You gave me the information on the gala so I could organize Viper’s ambush.”

Stiles swallows. No one had been killed or badly hurt, but they _could_ have been. That had been the goal, after all, when Viper provoked the Hulk. He knows _why_ Julia did it, but he still feels a hot rush of guilt at his role in it. 

“But if we’re going to succeed,” Julia adds. “Sacrifices will have to be made. We’ll all have to do things we’d prefer not to, even if that means hurting or killing someone innocent. You understand that, right? I’m trying to avoid any civilian collateral damage but if the Avengers force us into it, if we have no other choice…it’s all for the greater good, Stiles. Remember that.”

“For the greater good,” he repeats. “I know. I understand.”

“Good,” she praises, smiling. 

Stiles takes a long gulp from his coffee. “Speaking of Ward…is he still looking for you?”

Apparently, Grant Ward is very, _very_ good at holding a grudge. She’d reached out to him under the alias ‘Jennifer Blake’, gave him SHIELD secrets and used him and Hydra for her own gain, but once that alliance was no longer beneficial to her, Ward became nothing more than a thorn in her side. Julia truly despises Hydra and Ward is one of the worst of the scum; she’d sent a couple of people to try and kill him, since eliminating Ward would shut down a huge branch of Hydra. 

Unfortunately, they failed, and now Ward seems pretty hell bent on finding Julia and getting a little revenge. 

“Yeah,” she says, offering a little unconcerned shrug. “Don’t worry. If SHIELD hasn’t found us, Ward won’t. We’ll take care of him when the time comes.”

Stiles nods, feeling a familiar spike of hot anger through his veins. Ward is a dick and he can admit that he’d gladly watch him die; after all, he’d tried to kill Stiles twice, almost killed Allison, and has done enough fucked up, brutal shit to warrant a long tenancy in Hell. 

Stiles drains the rest of his coffee and leans back into the couch. “I was supposed to spend today with my dad.”

Julia’s smile is gentle, full of understanding as she murmurs, “I know, darling. It’ll be okay. Just remember that you’re doing this for him. When this is all over, think about all of the Christmases you’ll get to spend together. He won’t be at risk anymore, you won’t have to worry about him getting hurt again because of superhero bullshit. He’ll be safe.”

Stiles closes his eyes. It still hurts to think about the Battle of New York; sometimes, he still dreams about seeing his dad run back into the chaos after getting Stiles into the subway and out of danger. He can’t remember the phone call he received hours later – shock had worn away that memory – but he can still see his dad lying in that hospital bed, can recall the raw, haunted grief on his dad’s face when he realized his leg was gone. 

He knows that his dad would do it again in a heartbeat. If there ever comes a time when his dad can step in and help protect innocent people, he will, prosthetic leg be damned. The thought is unbearable, the fear that one day he might lose his dad painful enough to squeeze Stiles’s lungs like a vice. He won’t let that happen. Not ever. He’ll make sure his dad is safe, that _everybody_ , in the long run, is safe.

It means getting rid of Hydra. It means getting rid of SHIELD and the Avengers and all of the other superheroes and vigilantes running around, taking the law into their own hands and causing chaos. There would be no Hydra without SHIELD. No supervillains with a vendetta without superheroes. Getting rid of the evil means ensuring those like the Avengers retire. No more battles that destroy city blocks, no more innocent people being collateral damage, no more fear of the Hulk or Thor or, fuck, aliens deciding to challenge Earth’s mightiest heroes, because there won’t _be_ any heroes anymore. It’ll go back to how it once was. The power and law will go back into the right hands. The world will be _safer_.

It won’t be easy. It’ll be dark and painful and it’ll require doing things that Stiles would never normally consider. It might mean sacrificing innocent people and being hated for a while. But that’s what saving the world _really_ means. The path to Hell is paved with good intentions, sure, but the one to Heaven is paved with bloody, vicious glory. 

He knows now what it means to be a hero. It means doing things that may not feel right, things that the world might struggle to forgive, even if those actions are to _save_ them all. It means emptying himself out, carving out everything he used to be to make room for something darker, something _stronger_.

He suspects he won’t get a happy ending out of this, but, somehow, that thought doesn’t terrify him. It’s all for the greater good in the end. 

The bunker door opens and Kowalski, Phillips and Sullivan spill inside. Kowalski heads straight to Julia, offering her a brown paper bag, and she takes it with a smile. She doesn’t comment on what’s inside it and Stiles doesn’t ask. Her plan is perfectly weaved together, with cautious, intricate steps, and Stiles doesn’t know all of it, but he trusts her to tell him if it’s necessary. 

Sullivan removes her winter layers and sits next to Stiles on the couch. He can smell the cold on her skin and reaches over to turn the heater up a little, and the smile she offers him is warm and sincere. 

He’d never worked with Erin Sullivan when they were both with SHIELD. She was a level four agent and didn’t have any responsibilities with new recruits, but he’d seen her in the base a few times and Coulson had once asked him to pass a file onto her. 

She’s in her mid to late thirties, and usually she has long auburn hair, cool grey eyes and a smattering of freckles across high cheekbones and a straight, slender nose. Right now, though, her hair is hidden under a shoulder length brunette wig, she’s smoothed foundation over the freckles to hide them, and contacts have turned her irises to a clear blue. A pair of deep, tortoiseshell glasses complete her disguise. 

She’d been one of the first SHIELD agents to show up at the bunker, the same day that Stiles left the tower to join Julia. Over the next few days, Stiles discovered that, as well as the people now kept secure after they helped Julia escape, she’d put Kowalksi, Phillips and, of course, Erin under her thrall. He doesn’t know if there’s other SHIELD agents in her pocket, still hiding within the organization, but he suspects they won’t be able to pull off much even inside the base; SHIELD will be on high alert now.

Phillips sets a couple of pizza boxes on the coffee table. “I got dinner. Merry Christmas.”

It isn’t how Stiles expected his Christmas to go, sat in a bunker under an abandoned house, eating pizza with people he barely knows but, inexplicably, trusts completely. 

After all, they’re all Julia’s, and that makes them a kind of family. 

***

“Do you think you could access the tower’s security?”

Stiles looks away from the window to meet Julia’s gaze. She’s wearing an oversized peach sweater, leggings and fuzzy socks; no shoes, which isn’t the best idea given the state of the rotted floors. Nails are exposed in some places and there’s not enough light to see all of them. Stiles wordlessly offers her his blanket and she smiles, wrapping it around her shoulders for warmth.

“Tony will have changed it,” he says. “I can try, but JARVIS will be on the alert now. They could trace it back to us.”

“What if you did it from somewhere else?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I could try. I doubt I’ll manage it though. What are you looking for?”

“One of my contacts just called,” she replies. “Natasha Romanov and Bucky Barnes were just spotted in Monaco. They questioned a couple of former Hydra agents that have been laying low there.”

“And?”

“They’ve been asking about Kali. My fiancée. They’re looking for her.” Julia frowns slightly, crossing her arms over her chest. “If they find her…they could find this bunker. They would have all kinds of information on me. I need you to see what Stark’s AI has found on me and on Kali. Find out how much they already know.”

Stiles nods. “I’ll do my best,” he promises, getting to his feet.

She reaches out, resting a hand on his wrist as they leave the room and the armchair behind them. They head down to the bunker together; Erin and Chase are sat on the floor on opposite sides of the coffee table, playing a game of cards. Andrzej is positioned at one of the computer terminals, watching CCTV footage with a rapt eye. Stiles doesn’t know what or who he’s searching for, but Julia seems pleased to see Andrzej so focused on his task.

He doesn’t know how long Kowalski has been under Julia’s control. Before or after that first mission, when Kowalski had patched Stiles up on the jet afterwards? It doesn’t matter, not really, but he wonders how much of Andrzej’s friendliness had been real and how much had been part of Julia’s compulsion. 

He’s never worked with Chase before; the guy had been a SHIELD field agent, a pretty damn good one from what Stiles knows. He’s a good ally to have on their side, but his personality reminds him a little of Ward, competent to the point of arrogance, his charm a little too slick to be genuine. 

Stiles goes straight for the bathroom, shutting the door behind him before moving to the row of sinks against one wall. For a moment, he just stares at his reflection in the mirror. 

He looks different. It’s not just the new hair cut or the scruff stubbled on his jaw and above his lip. He’s paler and he hasn’t been sleeping properly; it’s difficult to rest here, surrounded by other people, constantly on the alert in case the bunker is found. When he does sleep, he dreams of his dad, Scott, Allison, he dreams of _Steve_ , and he wakes up with a flash of guilt and frustration and wistfulness. Bruises smudge underneath his eyes.

His eyes are different, too. Still their usual amber brown, but there’s less life to them; they’re flat, blank, and there’s something inside them, buried deep; something dark, empty, a glint that’s not quite right. He’d seen it in Crawfield’s eyes but never realized it, he sees it in the gazes of the people he shares the bunker with, and now he recognizes it in himself. They’re the eyes of someone who’s been emptied out and stuffed full of someone else.

He squeezes his eyes shut, stares at the darkness inside his eyelids instead. He can envision it with a sharp, visceral quality, imagines watching himself be cut wide open, his guts spilled to the floor, his ribs and lungs and heart carved out and discarded, skull hollowed out and bones snapped apart in order to make room for something – _someone_ – else. It’s like a shadow, vast and empty, squeezing into the meat of him, creeping into every nook and crevice, filling him, suffocating him, stealing him until there’s nothing left but the dark. It feels like a coldness Stiles has never experienced in his life, grinding in his teeth and bones, shards of ice turning the blood solid in his veins; frost creeps across his skin and into his eye sockets, ruthless and unforgiving. 

He hears the door open and click shut again. A hand finds the middle of his back, fingers digging gently into the arch of his spine, tracing the knots and ridges until they settle, flat and grounding, between his shoulder blades. He doesn’t open his eyes. He doesn’t need to; the ice is gone and warmth floods his body, lights him up from the inside and out. He can breathe again, slow and easy, and his mind goes blissfully quiet.

Julia smooths her palm over his muscles, gliding upwards to the back of his neck. Her fingers scrub over the short hair there, fingernails scratching feather-light over his scalp, and tension seeps away from him. He belongs to somebody else, mind, body and soul, and he doesn’t have to worry about anything more. He doesn’t have to _think_ and the relief that brings is painfully beautiful.

“You’re worried,” she says.

“If they do find me…” he pauses, opens his eyes. “I won’t win in a fight against any of them. They were caught off guard last time, I had the advantage, but they’ll be ready now. I won’t stand a chance.”

Stiles’s ribs, the damage to his throat and the shallow wound on his hip have healed up. The cut on his head has healed into a scar that’s invisible thanks to his hair and the bruises on his face are gone; all that’s left to show he’d ever been hurt in the first place is a few lingering splashes of pale green and yellow on his throat. Physically, he’s up to fighting strength, but that means nothing against any of the Avengers.

“But you will anyway,” Julia says, her gaze meeting his in the mirror, brown irises shifting to smooth frosted silver. “If you have to. If they force you to. For me? For the cause?”

“Yes.” The word is tugged from his throat. “Always. For the greater good.”

She smiles, pleased. “For the greater good,” she repeats softly. “I’m so glad you understand that, Stiles.”

“I wish Steve and the others would too,” he replies quietly.

“They will. Not now and probably not soon, but one day, they will. I promise.” She pauses, thumb ghosting across the sensitive skin behind Stiles’s ear. “But if they don’t? If they retaliate?”

He takes a deep breath and stares at his own eyes in his reflection, watching amber irises flicker a brief, foggy silver. 

“Then we destroy them.”

Julia squeezes his neck gently, just once, gaze still locked on his in the mirror. “I know it’s hard for you, darling. You love them. But you’re doing the right thing.”

He nods. “I know.”

Smiling, she holds out a contact lens case. Stiles takes it and washes his hands before he leans closer to the mirror, carefully inserting the colored lenses, turning clear brown to a muddy green. He grabs a bottle of hair gel and slicks the longer hair on top of his head down so it cuts across his forehead in an angled, edgy style. With the fake tattoos on his neck, a false ring on his nose, and the thick rimmed glasses he slides on, he passes as any other city hipster, the disguise effective without being over the top.

He tugs a cap on and glances at Julia. She offers an approving smile.

“Good luck,” she says.

“I won’t be long.”

“You know what to do?” she checks. “If you’re caught?”

They go through it every time he has to leave the building. He thinks about the pill in his pocket and nods. “I know,” he promises. “I’ll see you later.”

He collects a laptop from Kowalski, tucking it into the backpack he slings over one shoulder. He doesn’t leave through the front door of the brownstone, which is boarded up, maintaining the illusion of the house being empty and abandoned. Instead, he removes one of the boards from the window in the kitchen and squeezes through the gap before replacing it. There isn’t a garden, just a small patio area with cracked flagstones and the rusted metal remains of what was once a bench, bordered by a tall, crumbling brick wall.

Stiles pulls on a pair of black wool gloves, effectively warding off the cold but also making sure he won’t leave his fingerprints anywhere. He uses the bench to propel himself up, grabbing the top of the wall; he heaves himself up and over, landing on the other side in a narrow, grimy alleyway. He glances towards the mouth of the alley, checking it’s clear, before he jumps on top of a dumpster, then pushes off _that_ to grab the bottom rung of the ladder on a fire escape. 

It rattles down, the metal slippery under Stiles’s sneakers as he climbs up. He tugs the ladder back up and then starts to climb the rusted steps, metal creaking, the cold of the railing seeping through Stiles’s gloves. When he reaches the very top of the building, he sprints across the roof, plants one foot on the edge and then _leaps_ , sailing over the gap between one building and the next. He lands in a shoulder roll and pops back to his feet, heading for the next roof. 

It’s necessary, but it’s also pretty damn exhilarating. He knows this route by heart now, knows how to avoid the cameras, knows which spots are the easiest and which leaps he needs to be more careful with. It’s basically parkour and it’s _fun_ , gets his blood pumping and adrenaline teasing through his veins. When he’s a few blocks away from the bunker, he makes his way down another fire escape, landing in an alley. He doesn’t pause, just tugs the hood of his sweatshirt up over his cap and heads for the mouth, timing it so when he steps out onto the busy street, he merges easily with the stream of foot traffic, blending in with other pedestrians as he keeps walking.

He keeps his face hidden from cameras without ducking his head or being obvious. His gait is different from the way he usually walks; he doesn’t hunch his shoulders or stare at the ground, but he keeps his hands in his pockets, maintaining a slight, lazy slouch, moving with long, loping, confident strides. In a city as busy as New York, it’s easy to disappear into the crowd; even with the cameras he can’t avoid, his disguise and altered posture is enough to trick any recognition software. 

It’s a routine he’s been doing for the last few weeks; he doesn’t leave the safehouse often, only when he completely has to, but he uses a different disguise every time, slipping into each cover. 

Nerves sting through him when he heads down into a subway station. It’s packed, which is good for merging into a crowd, but it’s not open like the streets above; if he _was_ to be found, he’d be easily cornered, especially on the train he boards.

He squeezes into an empty seat between a guy with a newspaper and a teenager wearing a huge pair of headphones, tapping her sneaker along to the music. He slouches in his seat, tipping his head back until he can feel the cold, damp glass of the window against his scalp through the fabric of his sweater’s hood. The vibration of the train as it rattles along the track pulses through his skull; he can feel it in his teeth, buzzing in his eye sockets, and it’s oddly soothing. 

Three stops later, the doors open, letting in a burst of sharp, cold wind, the musty stink of the underground station, and a familiar laugh. Stiles doesn’t allow himself to tense or look towards the doors; he stays loose limbed and bored, even as his heart twists itself like a goddamn pretzel. 

There are three empty places opposite Stiles. He doesn’t flinch as they’re quickly filled by familiar faces.

Erica’s got pink running through her blonde curls, matching the shade of her lipstick and nail polish. She’s wearing a black sweater under her leather jacket and boots with heels that could double as a weapon, and she tucks into Boyd’s side, fitting easily under his arm to ward off the chill permeating the train car. On her other side, Derek hunches slightly in his seat, hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket. He’s grown his stubble out into a thicker beard. It suits him.

Erica looks straight at Stiles.

Stiles tucks his tongue into his cheek, bites down on it as he fights the instinct to flinch or look away. There isn’t a single hint of recognition in her dark eyes; her gaze passes right over him, as uninterested with him as she is with the other passengers. He exhales slowly, relieved. 

His own friend, sat just a couple of feet away from him, doesn’t recognize him. It’s what he’s good at; blending in, going unnoticed. SHIELD had taught him how to hone that natural ability into a genuine skill, how to be a chameleon without having to resort to elaborate disguises. 

_Adaptability_ , he thinks, and struggles against the sudden urge to cry.

Boyd isn’t even looking at him; his attention is fixed completely on Erica, a smile curling on his lips as she talks. Her own gaze is full of open adoration as she grins at him. Derek smiles as he listens, but he casts a look around the car, and for a second, his gaze locks with Stiles’s.

This man knows Stiles intimately; he’s mapped out the moles and freckles on his body with fingers and lips and tongue, has explored every inch of skin offered to him. He’s fucked Stiles into a barely coherent wreck; he’s been buried inside him, flesh to flesh, torn ragged cries from his throat and worn scratches like a badge of honor down his back. 

He _knows_ Stiles. 

He’s thinking it, staring at Derek, head pulsing with each _notice me, notice me, notice me_ that pounds like a drum beat through Stiles’s mind, hammering in sync with the sudden rapid beat of his heart. He can taste the words in the back of his throat. His fingers twitch and ache with the sudden urge to reach out, to grasp Derek’s wrist. _Notice me, notice me. You KNOW me_.

Derek looks away. 

The train jerks to a stop and the doors open. Stiles gets to his feet, pushes his way through crowds until he’s off the train, the doors snapping shut behind him with a puff of air that tickles the back of his neck. The train punches forward again, disappearing into the tunnel, and Stiles watches it go, knees weak and hands trembling slightly. 

When someone jostles him, shoulder bumping into his own, he finally looks away from the tunnel and starts moving, snaking a path through the crowded station until he finds a secluded corner, away from impatient commuters and curious gazes. He leans against the wall, feels the cold seep through his hoodie, sucking uncomfortably at his skin as he slides down slightly, pulling his palms down his face. 

His head is killing him. It feels like not a single inch of his brain is left uneaten by the fire roaring inside his skull. His eyes water, melting inside their sockets; he squeezes them shut, trying to block out the light and noise that sends fresh pulses of pain searing through him. He can’t breathe, can’t cry out, can’t do anything but slump against the wall and let the agony blast through him. His skull is going to shatter, going to explode outwards, and the fire will be free, consuming everything -.

He opens his eyes and the pain is gone, blinking out like a smothered flame.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: there is a strong warning in place for this chapter. It's pretty dark and there is a very graphic description of a gory, visceral death and of the corpse. If you'd prefer to avoid that, I suggest skipping from the line 'The robot's arm flashes out' to the paragraph staring 'Everyone will see this'. 
> 
> As well as that, warnings are in place for blood, description of injuries, death, graphic violence, gore and explosions. 
> 
> And just a friendly reminder that mind control is creepy and uncomfortable.

Stiles pushes back to his feet, rubbing at the base of his skull, and lets the frantic beat of his heart slow down again before he leaves the station. He doesn’t need to be nervous; none of his friends had recognized him, he hasn’t been made, and everything is okay. He just needs to focus on his task.

He finds a small, independent coffee house and slips inside. Snow is melting on his clothes and a chill has settled in his bones, but the warmth of the shop instantly soothes away the cold. The smell of roasting coffee beans and baked goods is thick and heavy in the air, quiet indie music plays from a speaker tucked discreetly in one corner, and the clink of cutlery and murmur of multiple voices is almost comforting.

It reminds Stiles of his college days, sequestering himself in diners or coffee houses to study or work on a paper. The noise and the people and the reassuring anonymity of just being another student in need of caffeine and free Wi-Fi had been a good way to slow down his mind enough to focus on school work. 

He orders a coffee and finds a small, circular table that’s away from the windows, hidden slightly by the counter that juts out from one wall. He sits down in the squishy, slightly overstuffed armchair and tugs the laptop out of his backpack, resting it on the table. He hits the power button, waits for it to load up. It’s sleek and compact, barely emitting a whisper of noise, and he knows Kowalski has ensured it’ll be up for the job. 

He takes a sip of coffee, holding the hot liquid on his tongue for a moment, savouring the bitter smoothness before he swallows. His heart is pounding a little, nerves making him jittery. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to do it. The first thing Tony would have done is make sure Stiles can’t access JARVIS anymore; all of his breaches, all of the little, hidden entry points Stiles set up will be fixed and added security will be in place. He’s not smart enough to get past Tony’s security. He suspects the second he tries, JARVIS will start tracing him.

He exhales slowly and flexes his fingers slightly before getting to work. As he’d suspected, his initial attempts hit a wall pretty fucking quickly, but when he tries one of the hidden access points, he’s surprised to find it works. 

Instantly, he starts searching through JARVIS’s recent files, looking for any information on the Avengers’ search for Julia and Kali. He’s surprised by the sheer amount of effort they’re putting into their search; they’ve been targeting both Hydra and Viper as well as small, local criminal circuits, looking for any information they can get, pulling at any threads that might offer a lead as to Stiles’s whereabouts. It makes his heart hurt and he has to pause for a moment to pull himself back together. He hasn’t got time to waste; he needs to focus on his job.

A second later, the screen flickers and Stiles pauses, unease knotting in his gut. Footage comes to life; Tony’s lab. The man himself is sat back in his chair, gazing at the camera, fiddling slightly with a wrench. 

He’d left the access point on purpose. Of course he had.

“What’s up, Bambi? I figured you’d try and muscle your way back in eventually.” Tony taps the wrench against his chin for a moment, then sets it down on the table. “You’re looking for our information on Julia and Kali, huh? Looks like we’re heading in the right direction if Julia’s getting antsy about what we’re up to.” 

Stiles bites his lip. He hasn’t seen any of them since the day he left the tower. Tony looks tired, but his face doesn’t give away any emotion as he leans forward slightly. It feels like he’s staring right at Stiles and he feels a sliver of anxiety. 

“Here’s what you should know,” he continues. “We’re not gonna give up. We’ll find Julia. We _will_ find you. Someone will kick her ass – I don’t really care who, but someone will do it – and Cap will stop moping like a kicked puppy and you…well, you’ll get the fuck tonne of therapy you’ll probably need after being someone else’s plaything. But here’s the thing, Bambi. I believe in you. And, trust me, I am pissed as hell that you’re making me say that because _Christ_ , what is this, a Hallmark movie? But it’s true. I’ve spent time with you. I know you. You’re strong, you’re as stubborn as Steve goddamn Rogers, and you’re…well, you’re a good person, okay? I think you can fight this. I _know_ you can fight this. And when you do… we’ll all be waiting. And we’ll kick her ass together.” 

Stiles slams the laptop shut. Pain slithers through his head, slicing ruthlessly down his spine. He closes his eyes, but Tony’s words still bounce around inside his skull.

He swallows and tastes ash at the back of his throat. It hurts, it _burns_ , and he’s sick of it, sick of this feeling. They keep doing this to him, keep pushing him until his mind screams and splinters apart, and he can’t take it. 

They’ll be coming for him.

The thought is a cool snap through the haze in his brain. The pain fizzles out, leaves him dazed, but he has to move. They’ll already be on their way. Tony will have sent the alert out the second he knew Stiles was trying to get into the systems. 

He tugs a little device out of his pocket, tucking it into the port on the laptop. There’s a quiet crackle and Stiles waits for the light on the gadget to switch to green before removing it again. He’ll leave the laptop here; it’s useless now, just a shell of plastic and circuitry. He shoves the device into his backpack and doesn’t bother finishing the rest of his coffee, instead slipping through the door leading to the bathroom.

He squeezes out through the narrow window, wincing as he scrapes his ribs. He lands in an alleyway and slings the backpack on before aiming straight for the fire escape on the other side of the alley. He’s quick and quiet as he climbs it, all the way up to the roof, and once he’s there he crosses it to reach the front of the building, overlooking the street below. He settles in a crouch, watching over the ledge. 

Less than five minutes later, Clint and Steve arrive. It’s like a punch to the gut to see them, even at such a distance, and he curls his fingers around the edge of the roof until grit digs into his skin and his knuckles ache. Steve heads inside the coffee shop and Clint disappears into the alley way to cover all possible exits. A minute later, a SHIELD van pulls up and May, Bobbi and Hunter spill out of it.

Stiles leans away from the edge. They’ll know now that Stiles isn’t in the coffee shop anymore and the first thing they’ll do is start searching possible routes he took to get away. He needs to move.

Twenty two minutes. It took them twenty two minutes from the moment he started to hack into JARVIS for them to reach Stiles’s position. They had to be on guard, ready to move the second they got a lead. Stiles can use that, if needed; he can provide a distraction, lure them to one place to give Julia the time needed to pull something off elsewhere.

He sticks to the roofs, finding a path from one building to the next, avoiding the cameras. Tony will be looking for him now, so he needs to be as careful as possible. He takes a different route back towards the safehouse just to be cautious, but he doesn’t relax until he’s squeezed back through the gap in the boarded up window and is stood in the dark, narrow kitchen.

He replaces the board and shoves his hood back, taking a moment to catch his breath. Then he heads down into the bunker, making sure the door locks behind him before he peels off his gloves and hovers his hands above the portable heater, letting the dry warmth melt the chill away from his flesh.

Julia’s in the kitchenette. The smell of chocolate drifts towards Stiles and he tosses his cap onto the coffee table before approaching. She glances over her shoulder at him and offers a smile.

“Hey. How did it go?”

“I managed to get through,” he replies. 

“I knew you could do it,” she praises, turning to cup his cheek. “You’re more brilliant than you even realize, Stiles.”

“No, he…uh, Tony allowed me access,” Stiles says. “He spoke to me.”

She tilts her head slightly. “What did he say?”

“That they’re obviously looking in the right direction if you’re worked up about them searching for Kali. That they’re not going to give up, that they’ll find me. And they’ll kick your ass.” He shrugs slightly. “He said…he said I’m strong enough to fight and to come back to them. Something about therapy after being your plaything. Uh…that’s about it. I booked it after that, before I got caught.”

She frowns, other hand coming up to touch his face gently. “You are _not_ my plaything,” she says fiercely. “You are my ally. My friend. You are _mine_ , Stiles.”

“I know,” he murmurs. Without heels, she’s a couple of inches shorter than him, and he has to bend slightly to tuck his face into her neck, accepting the comfort she offers. “I know.”

“Why would you fight?” 

“I don’t know. It hurts when I fight. I can’t…it’s like…” Stiles trails off, trembles slightly. “It’s like my brain is being fractured apart. I’m not fighting. I wouldn’t. I’m yours.”

Her hand smooths down his back. “I know, darling. I know.” She pulls back slightly, smiles up at him. “It will stop hurting, I promise. You’re with me now, at my side. Proximity is best. Eventually, the fighting will stop, and so will the pain. You won’t remember anything but being mine. It’ll be okay.”

Distantly, he thinks he should feel horrified by that, but instead, it’s almost a comfort. He takes it as a promise, a reassurance, and opens his mind up, letting that coil at the base of his skull unspool through him, sinking gentle, adoring teeth into his heart. He’s hers and that’s all that matters.

“They came for you?” she asks. 

“Steve and Clint, and some SHIELD agents,” he answers. “They didn’t catch me. We’re safe. But they got there pretty damn fast.”

She nods, chewing that over for a moment. She turns back to the single camping stove, finishes stirring something in a pan, and then pours hot chocolate between two mugs. She hands one to Stiles before moving to sit on the couch. He follows, sitting down next to her.

“I, uh…I saw some friends,” he says.

She reaches out, resting a hand on his knee. “Any problems?”

“No. They didn’t recognize me.”

“Good. You did brilliantly.” She squeezes gently. “I’m sorry, darling. I know that must have been difficult.” 

He nods and takes a sip of the hot chocolate. It’s scalding, stinging the roof of his mouth for a second before he can taste the thick, smooth richness of cream and chocolate. It melts the last slivers of ice in his bones and he relaxes back into the couch.

“It was,” he agrees. “But it’s all for the greater good, right?”

She pats his knee once. “That’s right.”

Stiles presses his hands around the mug, the porcelain hot enough to sting the thin flesh of his palms; it’s grounding. He kicks off his sneakers so he can cross his legs underneath him. 

“Did you find anything?” Julia asks.

“I found some files on their search,” he replies. “They’ve got a whole bunch of information on you and Kali. I didn’t know you liked cats.”

She smiles slightly. “We had two. A fat ginger stray and a Russian Blue. Tigger and Felix.” 

“What happened to them?”

“I was in the hospital for a long time,” she says quietly, rubbing slightly at the scar on her throat. “They ran away.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “It was best for them. I had to burn down that old life and forge a new one from the ashes. I had to become someone else. I couldn’t hold on to anything from the person I used to be.” She clears her throat. “What else did they have on me?”

“Everything they could find on your old life and on some of your aliases. They’ve got Kali’s various covers as well and they’ve tracked her recent whereabouts. She was in Monaco three months ago. They’re trying to find out where she is now.”

“They’re getting close,” Julia mutters. “We’ll have to step up our plans.”

“You said you have a contact in Monaco,” Stiles says. “Could you…I mean, could you find Kali? If you wanted to?”

“If I truly wanted to, yeah, I probably could.” Julia looks down at her own drink, expression splintering open with a raw, haunted pain. “I don’t want to. I don’t think I could bear to see her again. But I might have to track her down in order to send you after her.”

“To do what?”

Brown eyes lift, locking with his again. “To kill her.”

Stiles swallows. “You would do that?”

“Kill her? Easily. She’s Hydra and she…she destroyed me. She ripped apart everything I am, burned down everything we had. Killing her would be a privilege. Besides, she’s a risk now. She could threaten our safety, compromise our plans, and I can’t allow that. Not now we’re so close. She has to be eliminated before she becomes a real problem.”

“And you want me to do it?”

“She doesn’t know I’m alive,” Julia explains. “If I draw her attention to me…she’ll be even more of a threat. Besides, while I’d happily slit her throat myself, I’d rather let you do it. I did love her once.” She shrugs slightly, offering a small, bitter smile. “We all have to make sacrifices. She’ll be one of mine.”

He nods. “I’ll do it.”

“I know you will, darling. I trust you.”

Stiles smiles and sips his hot chocolate. It slides like warm silk down his throat and he closes his eyes, savouring a moment of calm and peace. He doesn’t know where Kowalski, Phillips or Sullivan are and he doesn’t ask. Instead, he finishes his drink and sets the mug on the table before looking at Julia again.

“So, what’s first?” he asks.

“Stark is clearly on the alert. Do you think you can still do what I asked you?” 

“Yeah. I made sure of it.” 

“Good. Then we’ll do it on New Year’s Eve. I hoped for a little more time to get things in place, but I think New Year’s Eve will work well. A lot of crowds, a lot of people, a lot of attention. It’s our best shot.” She stands and moves to one of the computer terminals, bringing up a photo of a building. “I’ve found the perfect place for you, too. It’s empty, so no one will be inside it. It was recently sold at auction, a charity bought it to convert into a community outreach centre. This is where I want you. Understood?”

Stiles looks at the building and leans over her to pull up floor plans and photos of the interior. He checks the address with street view and smiles; it’s not a very tall building, but the top floor provides an ideal view of exactly where Stiles needs to be watching. It’s perfect.

Julia rests her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “This is it. Our first step forward. After that, it won’t take long, I promise, and then this will all be over. We’ll be safe.”

***

_There’s blood on his hands._

_It drips down Natasha’s back, staining her sweater and skin until all he can see is red. He did that. He made her bleed. It’s hot and slick on his palms and he wipes them desperately on his jeans, but he can’t get it off; it crusts under his fingernails and embeds itself in the grooves of his skin._

_She looks at him, green eyes blank, blood dripping to the floor. Clint lies at her feet, face a bloody mess, still and silent._

_He turns and watches Steve fall, crashing to the ground before Stiles can catch him. In an instant, he’s on his knees next to him, fumbling for his head, guilt and rage a violent storm in his ribcage as he tries to wake Steve up. His hands come away covered in more blood and he stares at them, trembling as a pool of dark red seeps across the floor around Steve. Blue eyes stare up at him, empty and unseeing._

_He did this._

He wakes with a jolt, breath catching in his lungs, and a dull ache buzzes in his head. He exhales slowly, digs his thumbs against his temple as he waits for the tight knot of pain to relax. It’s getting easier to give in to the agony when it happens; as soon as he stops fighting it, the pain is gone. He can’t really remember _why_ he fights anymore.

Once the pounding finally stops, he opens his eyes. From the bunk next to him, Erin glances up from the book in her hands, eyes sharp as she looks him over. 

“What is it?” she asks, voice pitched low so it doesn’t wake Kowalski; like Stiles, he’s taking a nap in preparation for a long night. 

He shakes his head slightly. “Bad dream.”

“Mm. I have them, too. Sugar helps, especially chocolate.” She opens the drawer next to her and digs out a bar of chocolate, handing it over.

Stiles smiles. “Thanks.”

She marks the page in her book and closes it, setting it aside. “Are you ready for tonight?”

He shrugs slightly. “I guess. I’ve got the easy job. Chase has got the rough task.”

She smiles. “Rather him than me.”

Stiles snorts slightly, nodding his agreement, and peels open the bar of chocolate. He nibbles at a square of it, letting the rich smoothness soothe him. There’s an uncomfortable feeling itching under his skin, a kind of steady, insidious dread that he can’t shake off. It’s more than the jitter of anxiety of their mission, the worry of whether they’ll pull it off or not, but he can’t place _why_ he feels so uneasy. 

The image of Steve’s eyes, empty and lifeless, lingers at the back of his mind. He closes his eyes and he can still see his face, pale and vacant, can almost feel the hot slickness of blood on his hands. 

“Do you have someone?” he asks without opening his eyes.

“Someone?” Erin prompts. 

“Someone you care about. A partner, or a friend, or just…family. Someone you left behind.”

He hears the quiet tap of Erin’s fingers on her knee. “Yeah. I have a son.”

“Is he safe?”

“He’s with his aunt. Why?” 

“Do you think about him?” Stiles murmurs. “All the time?”

“Of course I do. He’s my son. I miss him more than anything.” Erin sighs. “But this is…it’ll be worth it. For him. We’re making the world a safer place for people like my Jacob. It’ll all be okay in the end.” There’s a pause, then, “Do you miss your family?”

“Yeah. So much it hurts.” Stiles opens his eyes, looks at her. “I’m in a relationship with Steve Rogers. Or…or I was, anyway, maybe…he doesn’t want me anymore. After this. But I keep thinking that this is all for him, too. He’ll be able to rest, finally, and not worry about Captain America or saving the world. He can retire. We can be _happy_. But I know he won’t back down. If I have to face him…”

“You’ll have to kill him,” Erin finishes gently. 

“Yes.”

“Julia won’t let it come to that,” she reassures him. “She has all kinds of contingency plans. The Avengers won’t even get close to stopping us. When this is all over, I’ll go back to Jacob and you can go back to your family.”

It sounds so simple and almost unbearably positive. Stiles has always edged on the side of cynicism and that jadedness scratches at him now, battles with the certainty in his heart. He has no choice but to keep going, to help Julia do what needs to be done, but he’s painfully aware that there’s a strong chance Steve won’t welcome him back with open arms when it’s all over.

There’s a buzzing at the base of his skull and Stiles closes his eyes, focuses on each slow inhale and exhale instead. Slowly, the world fades away again, until there’s nothing but the rustle of sheets as Erin moves and the rise and fall of his own chest. He doesn’t fall asleep, but his mind goes blissfully quiet. It’s so rare that everything is so still and so peaceful and he relishes in it, cups his hands around that coil of alien coolness in his mind and pulls it closer, lets himself drown in it.

Eventually, there’s a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Time to move, Stiles.”

He looks up at Erin and nods, climbing off his bunk. It’s slim, just about big enough for one person, and the thin mattress isn’t much of an effective barrier between his back and the cold metal. He stretches, easing the ache in his spine, and watches as Erin wakes Kowalski up.

Stiles changes into clothes fit for his mission. He’s not stupid enough to wear his SHIELD uniform; they need to avoid detection as much as possible. Instead, he pulls on black cargo pants, a navy turtleneck sweater, and boots. He slips a thin, flexible Kevlar vest over his head and walks out into the main bunker.

Chase is already dressed for the mission, in tight jeans, a plaid shirt and a hooded denim jacket. His blond hair is slicked back with gel and, since leaving SHIELD, he’s grown in a thick beard that somehow looks good instead of scruffy. He offers Stiles a grin as he places a pair of glasses on his face.

Kowalski and Erin are dressed similarly to Stiles. Julia looks relaxed in her sweatpants and hoodie, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, but he can see the tension in her dark eyes. She folds her arms and watches them as they prepare for their mission. 

Stiles tucks a knife into each boot, holsters a Glock 26 at his waist, and slips his stun disc into one of his pockets, sliding the ring onto his middle finger. He tucks a garotte into another pocket and makes sure he has his pill within reach if he needs it. 

He fills a backpack with what he needs and zips it up securely before slipping on a knee length wool coat, buttoning it up to conceal his Kevlar vest and holster. His hair is smoothed down and hidden under a winter hat. Julia approaches, running her palm over the scruff on his jaw before she leans up to kiss his cheek.

“You know what to do,” she says. “I trust you.”

Stiles nods. “I won’t let you down. I promise.”

“Your pill?” she checks.

“I have it with me. If I get caught…I’ll do what I have to.”

She strokes her fingers over his jaw one more time before stepping back. She checks her watch and nods slightly. “I’ll see you later.”

Stiles offers her a small smile that he hopes is reassuring before he heads out. He leaves first, several minutes ahead of Chase, and then Kowalski and Erin. He takes his usual route away from the safehouse but doesn’t duck into the first subway station he sees, instead walking further in order to avoid slipping into patterns. 

When he reaches his chosen station, he jogs down the steps and squeezes onto the train. It’s New Year’s Eve so it’s _crammed_ , full of partiers and drunks and noise. Stiles tucks in by the doors, holding his balance as the train rattles forward. It doesn’t get any less packed; each time people spill out at a stop, more wrestle their way on.

He wonders how his friends will be spending New Year’s Eve. Scott and Allison used to host a party every year; he doesn’t know if Scott will still throw one now he and Allison aren’t together. He thinks about his friends, thinks about Erica and Isaac forcing Derek to wear goofy glasses and Allison debating which of her two partners she’ll kiss first at midnight and Scott throwing an arm around Boyd and Lydia’s shoulders, pulling them into a cheerful hug as they watch the fireworks. 

A dull throb aches in his sternum and he closes his eyes, takes a slow, deep breath to centre himself again. He can’t think about them now. That can wait until later, when his job is over and he’s lying on an uncomfortable bunk surrounded by other people and he can dwell on thoughts of his friends and family and how much he misses them. Right now, though, he has to focus on the task ahead of him.

Finally, the train reaches his stop. He carefully forges a path through the crowds in the station and jogs up the steps to street level. Cold wind slaps his cheek and stings his eyes. It’s not snowing, but there’s ice and sludge on the sidewalk and it crunches under his boots as he starts to walk. He steps aside to dodge the few pedestrians he passes. It’s still a little early, but celebrations are already in full swing; he can hear music and voices and laughter in the distance. 

He cuts a left, into an alleyway, and heads straight for a heavily padlocked door. He glances towards the mouth of the alley, checking that there’s no witnesses, before he slips his lock picking tools out of his backpack. He makes quick work of the padlock and uses a knife to force open the bolt on the inside of the door, then stashes his gear away again as he pulls the door open. It’s dark inside – the building is shut off from the grid, so there’s no electricity, no lighting – and he grabs a small flashlight from his bag, flicking it on. He slides the interior bolt back into place and slings his backpack over his shoulder. 

He swings the narrow beam of light around in a slow arc. The building is divided into different office spaces, but there’s little furniture left. The whole place is dusty and a little out of shape; graffiti sprawls across the walls of the stairwell and some of the ceiling tiles have crumbled, leaving dark, empty squares. Stiles starts to climb the stairs, making his way up to the very top of the building. He pushes open a door, accessing the side he needs, and weaves a path through old cubicles until he reaches the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He switches off the flashlight and gets settled by the glass, tugging a pair of binoculars out of his backpack. He can see the celebrations going on, has a good view of the crowds, but he has to use the binoculars to get a closer look. Already, there’s a decent amount of people, and it’ll only increase the closer it gets to midnight. Julia was right; tonight is the perfect opportunity.

He slips a comms unit out of his pocket and switches it on, placing it in his ear. “I’m in position.”

“Good,” Julia’s voice rings over the comms. “Chase will arrive soon. Erin’s nearly at her point.”

Stiles shifts to get more comfortable, leaning his shoulder against the glass. It’s cold, sinking through the material of his coat and sweater, and his breath makes it fog up slightly when he gets too close. 

A few minutes later, Erin joins the line. “I’m in position.”

“Good. Kowalski?” Julia asks.

“In position.”

“Chase is in place,” Julia says. “Hold tight.”

Stiles relaxes slightly. They’re all exactly where they need to be. He picks up the binoculars again and scans over the crowd far down below until he manages to find Chase. The bastard is already looking in Stiles’s direction, smirking slightly, and Stiles snorts. 

It’s a matter of waiting after that, counting down until it’s time to act. The cold is insidious and hard to ignore and Stiles’s ass aches a little from sitting on the floor for so long, but eventually, Julia gives the signal over the comms. He tugs a tablet out of his backpack and perches it on his knee, taking a deep breath. 

He pulls up a program and accesses twenty five of Tony Stark’s training bots. 

He doesn’t remember setting this up, doesn’t know when or even how he did it, but Julia had promised him that he’d made sure to only reprogram the ones that weren’t in the team’s current training rotation and, therefore, were disconnected from JARVIS. That way, Stiles’s changes were undetectable. More importantly, they couldn’t be controlled by JARVIS. 

Only by Stiles.

Fuck, he really hopes this works. 

“Okay, guys,” he murmurs, typing in the code Julia had provided him. “Time to rise and shine.”

He quickly comes to grips with how the programming works and what he needs to do to control the bots, which makes sense since it _is_ his own design, even if he doesn’t actually remember creating it. 

“Ready,” he says to Julia. “Time?”

“Five seconds. Four…three…two…” Julia counts down. “ _Now_.”

The clock hits midnight. 

Stiles taps a button. 

Even from this high up, he can hear the shouts and cheers and music. Fireworks start to spear into the sky, splashing dazzling colors across the swath of dark and confetti explodes into the air from cannons on the ground. 

“Erin?” he asks over the comms.

“Oh…wow, yeah, okay, it worked,” she confirms. “They just smashed through one of the tower windows. Holy _shit_ , they’re big.” 

Stiles exhales, a little relieved that the reprogramming worked, but he can’t relax just yet. The Avengers will already be assembling. He knows Tony will try to access the stolen robots to trace their controller, which will lead him straight to Stiles. He’s pretty certain his firewalls won’t hold up against Tony’s genius, _or_ JARVIS, which gives them a limited window of time to do as much damage as possible and for Stiles to get the hell out of here before Tony tracks him down.

Less than two minutes later, flashes of gleaming silver soar through the sky, weaving in and out between the spray of fireworks. People start to notice, pointing, and Stiles holds his breath.

“Okay, we’ve got their attention,” Julia says. She’s monitoring social media and livestreams, watching footage from camera phones and TV stations. “And people are definitely recognizing them as Iron Man’s work. They think it’s part of the celebrations, a surprise bit of showboating from Stark.”

It’s undeniable that the robots are Tony’s inventions. They’re seven foot tall and pure silver instead of his standard flashy red and gold, but their shape and dynamics are too similar to the armor to fend off any comparisons. Plus, despite several attempts to recreate the Iron Man suit, no one has come even close to replicating Tony’s intricate, incredible work, but the robots – while a lot more basic than the suits, but no less elegant because Tony doesn’t _do_ simplistic – are clearly of his design. 

They hover in the air, smooth, blank metal where faces should be tipped down as if to observe the crowd. 

And then they dive down.

One smashes into a car, turning into a mess of crumpled metal and broken glass. A quick wrench and it goes up in flames, people scattering away from it as the fire roars up. Another grabs hold of a lit firework, twists gracefully in the air, and Stiles knows what it’s doing; it’s scanning the buildings for one that isn’t occupied, where no civilians will be harmed. It finds one and throws the firework; it punches through a window and explodes a second later, lighting up the inside of the building and causing a pretty significant amount of damage.

Screams start to ring out. The music is cut off when another robot destroys the speakers, using one of them to throw at a building, knocking several bricks loose and smashing a window. Confetti is still showering down to the ground, fireworks are still popping and flashing in the sky, and it adds to the chaos, disorientates and terrifies the people running around, screaming and shouting and trying to find cover.

Some of the robots shoot off in different directions, programmed with set routes and secure parameters; they’re not to harm or engage with any civilians and they cannot cause any structural damage to buildings that might inadvertently endanger innocent people. But, within those limits, they’re programmed to cause damage and fear and chaos and, if – _when_ – any superheroes turn up, they can fight them. 

Except for Tony Stark.

With him, they’re programmed to employ aversion tactics, to avoid him as much as possible. If they have to face him, they’ll self-destruct to try and stop him from accessing their programming, but they can’t hurt him. 

Stiles listens to the sounds of chaos raining down on the city. If he closes his eyes, it’s horribly, brutally familiar; it reminds him of the Battle of New York, listening to screams and panic and pure, visceral fear around him as hell descended on the city, destroying everything in its path. 

But this is different. He can feel that buzz in the back of his skull and he squashes it, smothers it until it flickers out again, because _this is different_. No one innocent will be hurt. No civilian casualties, unless they’re caused by the Avengers, and that will be their fault. This isn’t like aliens streaming down from the sky or a Norse god shouting at the world to kneel before him; this is _saving_ the world. 

“Incoming,” Erin warns. “Stark just left the tower.”

Stiles watches as the three robots he can still see continue their rampage. Most of the streets below are empty now, people ducking into buildings or into alleyways to try and hide and stay out of the danger zone. Cars explode or get lifted and thrown to the ground, cracking the road and destroying sidewalks. Buildings are chipped or burnt or dented. Glass spews across the street and fire lights up the night. 

“Okay, Chase,” Julia says. “You’re up. You know what to do.”

Stiles can hear Chase’s deep inhale over the comms. His exhale is slow and shaky.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Thank you, Julia. It’s…I’m glad to be one of yours.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Julia counters softly. “You’re a hero, Chase. And you will always be mine.”

Stiles swallows. He doesn’t care much for Chase, but he can’t imagine how it must feel to know that in a few minutes, everything about Julia will be erased from his mind. The second Chase’s task is complete, he’ll forget Julia, forget about the safehouse and the others and Julia’s goal. He’ll remember his name and his time at SHIELD, but nothing after Julia was recruited. It’s for his own safety as well as Julia’s, but it must hurt to make that sacrifice.

“For the greater good,” Chase says quietly.

“For the greater good, darling.” 

Stiles focuses the binoculars on Chase, watches as he removes the comms unit from his ear and crushes it under his shoe. He kicks the remains into a gutter and steps out into the road. His face is pale and his eyes are shut, but he’s loose limbed, almost relaxed, and a serene smile flits across his mouth.

A robot lands in front of him, the road splintering under its feet. It’s going to break Chase’s leg and it’ll be brutal and Chase won’t understand, won’t know that it’s his sacrifice, because he’ll forget. Stiles swallows and waits, body held taut like piano wire.

The robot’s arm flashes out.

And smashes through Chase’s ribcage, fist slamming right through his body, covered in blood and viscera, fingers curled around a still beating heart. 

It’s thick arm splits Chase’s torso apart, ribs cracked open, torn into ragged splinters that pierce through ripped flesh and muscle. Chase’s eyes are open now, wide and shocked, mouth slack, blood dribbling from one corner as he stares vacantly at the robot. The fist clenches tighter, squeezes the heart it holds into pulp, and then yanks its arm back through the hole in Chase’s torso. 

Chase’s knees crumple and he drops to the floor, face hitting the ground. The hole in his torso is huge, exposing meat and bone and guts, and the robot opens its hand, lets the remains of the heart drip and slither to the road next to Chase’s head. Gleaming silver is splattered with red, chunks of _Chase_ clinging to the metal, and the robot flicks its fingers slightly, tossing a chip of bone to the side. 

Stiles is going to be sick. He can feel it burning in his throat, saliva building in the back of his mouth in preparation. But he can’t move; he’s frozen, fingers tight around the binoculars, knuckles aching. He realizes he’s shaking and there’s a ringing in his ears, drowning out everything else.

The robot was supposed to break Chase’s leg. Julia had told him that he’d programmed it to recognize Chase’s face and snap his leg. But he hadn’t. He’d programmed it to do _this_.

To kill Chase.

It could have snapped his neck, or his spine, or stopped his heart with a punch. Instead, it killed him in a gory, brutal, viscerally horrifying way, leaving a mutilated body on the ground, and Stiles knows why, knows it the second he spots a woman screaming, her phone still lifted in the air even as she backs away, trying to put distance between herself and the robot.

Everyone will see this. Everyone will see Chase die like this, killed by one of Iron Man’s robots. It’s more effective than a clean, kind death. 

Stiles drops the binoculars and twists to the side, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Bile stings his throat and tears burn his eyes, blurring his vision. He heaves and chokes for a second, lungs seizing around each breath, and he can’t stop shaking. His cheeks are wet, tears spilling down them, and for several long, awful seconds, everything hurts. 

“Stiles,” Julia’s voice cracks over the comms, sharp as a whip. “ _Stiles_! I need you with me. _Listen to me_.” Her voice lowers, slides smooth as silk into his ear, wraps around him, chasing away the shadows inside his ribcage. “I need you to focus.”

He sits up, wipes a hand across his mouth. “I’m here,” he croaks. “I’m with you.”

It’s easier with her control snapping over him, smoothing out the panic and horror that had been roaring through him. Certainty carves its way back into his heart and he takes a deep breath, returning his attention to the street below. 

A shield slams into the back of the robot, crumpling and denting the metal. Captain America jumps to catch it and lands in a run, letting it fly again when he’s close enough; it slices cleanly through the robot’s neck and metal shatters to the floor. 

Black Widow crouches next to Chase’s body for a moment. Stiles can’t see her face from this angle, but she tips her head towards Steve before shaking it as she gets back to her feet. 

An exploding arrow takes down a second robot and a flash of red and gold streaks between the buildings a moment later, repulsors splitting the air. They hit the third robot dead on and it crashes to the ground. 

More robots appear, their priority shifting to the Avengers now they’ve arrived. In the distance, lightning spears towards the stars, fracturing outwards like a spider’s web to hit four robots. On the street, Tony drops to land next to Steve and Bucky. 

Two robots turn towards them. One dodges the volley of bullets Bucky fires at it, a long, wicked blame unsheathing from its arm. It dives, swings the blade in an arc, but when Tony twists to shield Bucky from the weapon, the robot goes completely still.

It’s focus locks on Tony and then, slowly, it lowers the blade.

It becomes apparent pretty quickly that the robots are targeting any of the Avengers _except_ Iron Man. The team are effectively dispatching of them, too, working as flawlessly in real battle as they had when facing the robots in a simulated fight. Stark drops one of the robots and Stiles knows he needs to move; any second now, Tony will be able to trace the tablet’s location.

“You’re up, Kowalski,” he says into the comms.

He leaves the tablet where it is and packs everything except for a small device into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. He sprints down the stairs, slams the bolt loose on the back door, and steps out into the alley just as a motorcycle roars up near the mouth. He runs straight for it, grabs the helmet Kowalksi holds out, and jams it on his head as he climbs onto the back of the bike. 

Kowalski shoots off again, weaving an easy path around ruined cars and huge holes in the road despite his speed, away from the robots and the battle behind them. When they get far enough away, he pulls over and Stiles flips the helmet’s visor up, turning to look at the building he’d just abandoned.

Less than two minutes later, he sees the blur of the Iron Man armor as it flashes towards the building, smashing straight through a window. The tablet is still in there, leading Tony straight to the floor Stiles had vacated. 

“ _Now_ , Stiles,” Julia’s voice crackles in his ear.

The device is still in Stiles’s hand. He moves his thumb to the top, hovers for a split second above the button, and then presses down. 

The explosion punches glass and rubble outwards into the air even as the building collapses inwards, crumpling towards the ground. The force of it sends vibrations ricocheting outwards, rattling Stiles’s teeth as he watches the building be reduced, in a matter of seconds, to rubble and chaos.

With Iron Man still inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a playlist for this fic. Would anyone be interested if I shared a link to it?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: in a dream, there is some very graphic description of death and a corpse, with some gory visuals and details. If you'd rather avoid that, I'd recommend skipping from the line 'He sleeps and he dreams of blood' to the line 'His eyes open and a choked sound snaps between his teeth'.
> 
> As well as that, warnings are in place for: blood, death, violence, gore, nightmares, and mind control.

Kowalksi ditches the stolen motorbike and they walk back to the safehouse. 

They’re silent as they weave a convoluted route and rely on rooftops and fire escapes, avoiding detection as carefully as possible despite how the focus will definitely be elsewhere for a while.

When they squeeze through the kitchen window, Erin’s waiting for them. She turns to Stiles, resting a hand on his shoulder as Kowalski replaces the loose board, plunging the inside of the house into darkness. 

“Good job,” she says. “You did great.”

Stiles doesn’t move away, just looks between them. “Did you know? About Chase? That he…that he was gonna die?”

“Of course,” Kowalski replies. “Didn’t you?”

Stiles doesn’t answer, just swallows back the fresh burn of bile in his throat. He follows them down to the bunker and watches as they immediately start removing their outer gear, stashing weapons away and disappearing into the sleeping quarters to change clothes. Julia’s sat at a computer terminal, watching news footage of the destruction. 

She glances up when Stiles drops his bag onto the floor. “Well done,” she praises. “I knew you could do it. I’m so proud of you, Stiles.”

Stiles sits down heavily on the couch, peeling off his gloves. He drops them carelessly to the floor and stares at his hands. The skin is rough and pale, fingers trembling slightly. There’s no blood but he’s sure he can feel it, hot and tacky in the grooves of his palms, gumming under his nails. 

“You said it would break his leg,” he mumbles. 

Julia moves away from the computer, sitting down on the table opposite Stiles. She leans forward, resting her hands on his lower thighs, thumbs rubbing gently at the hollows at the back of his knees. 

“Stiles, darling,” she says gently. “I know how hard you take it when you lose someone. I wanted to save you the despair leading up to it. You needed to focus on the task.”

“Did he…did he _know_? What would happen?”

“Of course he did. It was his idea, Stiles. The heart… _he_ suggested that. He said he didn’t have any family, no one waiting for him to come home. He said it was better if it was him, rather than you or Erin or Andrzej, who all have loved ones.” 

Stiles closes his eyes at that. “He doesn’t have anyone to mourn him?”

“Yes, he does,” she replies fiercely. “He has _us_. We were his family. We will grieve for him and we will honor him by finishing this. It was his choice, Stiles. His sacrifice. Don’t diminish that. He wouldn’t thank you for it.” She squeezes his knees gently. “Darling, allow him the dignity of his sacrifice. Honor it. Mourn for him, but don’t let it sway you from our path. We have to finish this. For him. For everyone.” 

Stiles wraps trembling fingers around her wrists, holding on. He feels like he’s drowning and he clings to her, desperately needing an anchor.

“Did anyone else…?”

“No. No, of course not. I made sure of it, Stiles. No innocents were killed. Some were a little bit hurt, but nothing major. You did so well with the programming. You’re so good, Mieczyslaw.”

Stiles swallows at the use of his real name. He feels lost, a chasm cracking open his chest, shaking him apart from the inside. 

“I killed him,” he says, voice quiet and hoarse. “You made me kill him.”

“The _robot_ killed him, Stiles.” The words whip out, lashing the air between them. “And who made those robots? Who designed them to be dangerous? Tony Stark.”

“But I reprogrammed them.”

“I asked you to. _I_ asked you to include that kill command with Chase. It wasn’t you. If you’d like to blame someone in this room…blame me. Not yourself. But this wouldn’t have happened if Tony Stark didn’t create those robots. This wouldn’t have happened if Tony Stark didn’t exist at _all_. If it wasn’t for him, if it wasn’t for _all_ of them, the Avengers, all of the so called heroes…none of this would be necessary. Chase’s death is on _them_. And not just his, but so many more.”

Stiles shudders slightly, tips forward and squeezes his eyes shut. His head hurts, it’s on fire, searing through him until he can’t breathe. There are burning embers in his eye sockets and ash in his throat and he can hear the pounding of his heart as he digs his nails into her wrists, gritting his teeth against the agony. 

“Stiles,” she soothes. “Stiles, look at me.”

He can’t. He can’t bear to open his eyes, to feel the light splinter that pain into sharp, cruel shards. Her hands move to his face, fingers cool and gentle on his jaw, and she tips his head up. 

“Look at me,” she repeats.

Stiles pries his eyelids open, meeting her gaze. Her irises are frosted silver-white and instantly, he goes still, pinned down as he stares at her, unable to look away. Her thumbs stroke gentle, soothing arcs on his cheekbones.

“Mourn him,” she says, power vibrating through her voice, cocooning around Stiles like soft, warm cotton. “Grieve for him with me, with the others. But everything else about his death…the guilt, the blame, the anger, _all of it_ , I need you to shut it off. I need you to distance yourself. Do it, Stiles.”

Stiles stares at her and everything drips away from him. The pain seeps out of his skull, leaves a refreshing, peaceful coolness in its wake. He’s not shaking anymore. He feels grounded, exhausted and saddened by Chase’s death, but everything else…just disappears. The barest echo lingers, curling desperately between his ribs, but it’s chased away a second later and he sags forward, sighing in relief.

“Good,” she praises, stroking a hand through his hair. “You’re so strong, Stiles, and I admire that about you. But you need to stop fighting me. I hate to see it hurt you.”

“I know,” he whispers, voice cracking slightly. “I’m sorry.”

She gently pushes him back, cupping the side of his neck. “Go and get some sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Go on.”

She leans forward, presses a comforting kiss to his cheek, and Stiles squeezes her wrist once, gently, in gratitude before getting to his feet. He drags his tired body into the sleeping quarters and changes into sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt, climbing onto his bunk. He tugs the thin, scratchy blanket over his body and rolls onto his side, curling his arm around his pillow.

Surprisingly, it takes him mere minutes to fall asleep.

***

He’s up at six the next morning.

He leaves Julia and Kowalski to sleep and quietly changes before heading out into the main bunker. Erin’s watching the security feed, a cup of coffee cradled in her hands, and she glances up with a warm smile when she sees him.

“Morning,” she greets.

“Morning.”

He heads straight for the coffee pot and pours himself a cup. He drinks it while it’s still scalding, barely acknowledging the sting in his throat or the bitterness cloying between his teeth; Erin always makes sure her coffee resembles tar. He has a banana for breakfast, washing it down with the dregs of his coffee, and then makes his way to the makeshift gym area.

“How are you feeling?” Erin asks. “You seemed a little shaken last night.”

Stiles shrugs. “I wasn’t expecting to see Chase get his ribcage ripped open like some kind of reverse _Alien_ scene. Kinda knocked me for one.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “He was so brave. He knew it would get the attention needed from the public.”

Stiles nods. “I didn’t know the guy that well, but…yeah. It was brave.”

He warms up and does some cardio for a while, working up a sweat. He moves on to weights, getting settled on the bench. He starts reps, focusing on each of his breaths, the prickle of sweat on his skin as he lifts the bar. For a while, it’s quiet, the quiet clinking of metal the only sound piercing the silence of the room.

“It’d be nice if we could do a burial for him,” Stiles says eventually, grunting slightly on the next lift. “Acknowledge his sacrifice, you know?”

“Mm,” Erin replies, taking a sip from a fresh cup of coffee. “His body will be claimed by his wife, I’m sure. He’ll have a funeral. We just…can’t go. But he’ll at least have a service.”

Stiles pauses. “He had a wife?”

“Yeah. We were partnered on some missions with SHIELD; sometimes when stakeouts were boring we talked about stuff. I told him about Jacob. He told me about his wife. Sandra, I think her name is? A social worker. Likes to cook and paint, apparently. They have two kids.” She glances over. “Hey, you good? Do you need a spotter?”

Stiles stares up at the ceiling, letting the knowledge that Chase _did_ have a family sink in. It buzzes at the back of his skull, chews down into the meat of his brain, and he exhales shakily. 

“Yeah,” he manages finally. “I’m good.”

***

He makes lunch for the four of them, chilli cooked from scratch. Julia can’t cook, Erin can but hates it, and Kowalski is generally pretty happy to let Stiles rule the kitchen. 

It’s quiet without Chase. They sit around the coffee table, bowls in their laps, the news playing on one of the computers as they eat. Footage from the New Year’s Eve chaos is repeating on a loop on pretty much all of the major channels and Julia planned it perfectly; it’s pretty obvious the robots belonged to Tony Stark. 

There’s a clear video of the robots standing down when confronted by Tony. They viciously attack the other Avengers but leave him alone, giving him a wide berth, and no one has missed how crucial that fact is. There’s footage of Chase, too, although the moment of his death isn’t shown due to its graphic nature. But it’s online, visible for anyone to see if they look for it. 

Julia taps at the keyboard, flicks over to a talk show. 

“- says the robots weren’t being controlled by Stark,” one of the hosts says. “But they sure left him well alone, huh?”

“Right,” her male counterpart agrees, nodding his head. “Looks pretty dodgy to me. And what does it mean that someone can hack these so called training robots? They looked lethal enough to me, not some dummy mannequin. Someone was able to access them and use them. What else could be taken control of? Any one of Stark’s weapons? The Iron Man suit?”

Their guest, the daughter of a senator, looking prim and polished, settles her hands on her crossed knees. “Mr Stark has always been reckless,” she says. “I don’t think he’s a bad person. He tries not to be. But the fact is, his creations are dangerous. His weapons have been used to kill innocent people before. Then there was the incident with Ivan Vanko and his Whiplash suit. His own building was used to open the portal during the Battle of New York. And now this. He is dangerous. He claims to be a hero, but shows reckless abandon when it comes to creating these lethal things. He never stopped creating weapons. He simply stopped distributing them and kept them for himself. _He_ is a weapon. What happens if he turns against us, or his suit is taken control of by someone else? He’s a danger. He needs to be stopped. This is why my father’s campaign is so focused on holding people like Mr Stark accountable. Because if they’re left to do whatever they want simply because they _can_ …where does that leave innocent people like us?”

Julia smiles, giving a pleased little hum. She browses through a few channels, all of them debating the same topic: whether Tony Stark should be held accountable and whether the likes of the Avengers should be restrained. It’s exactly as she planned.

On another news channel, two women are talking quietly with the anchor. They look tired, despondent, and the reason becomes clear when Stiles reads the names at the bottom of the screen: they’re the leaders of the charity that had bought the building Stiles used last night.

“Mr Stark said that the tablet being used to control was in there,” the anchor says. 

“He says,” Ellen Armsmith replies. “But there’s no proof. The footage shows nothing going on inside that building. The robots weren’t going near it. He just swooped in and…and destroyed it.”

“We know he was trying to do the right thing,” her companion, Miranda, adds. “But that building…it’s gone now. We can’t afford to have it rebuilt. We’ve lost the money we sunk into it and we can’t afford to buy another place. Our community outreach project is ruined because of one man.”

“Tony Stark claims to do good. But last night, his own creations killed an innocent man. It tore the heart from his chest and he was too late to stop it. All of the Avengers were.” 

“It does make me wonder if anything would need ‘ _avenging_ ’ if they weren’t around,” Miranda admits. “The outreach project would have done more good than any of those self-professed superheroes do. It’s time to really look at their actions and think about what we need to do. Are they protecting us? Or are they just putting us more and more at risk?”

Julia’s smile widens, satisfaction curling at the corners of her mouth as she leans forward, changing channels again. This time, it’s live coverage of a press conference at the Avengers tower. Tony himself is at the podium; there’s a cut at his hairline, bruises on his jaw, and he looks exhausted, but he’s clearly not too badly hurt from the explosion.

“- following last night I have destroyed all of the training robots used in Avengers simulations,” he says into the microphone. “What happened last night is a tragedy, but we will find the person behind it -.”

“Mr Stark,” a journalist calls out. “What do you have to say to those who believe _you’re_ behind it?”

“I created the machines, yes. But I didn’t cause what happened last night. The Stark Foundation will be covering the costs of all repairs and damages -.”

“Bullshit!” a voice shouts.

The camera pans to a woman in the audience. She isn’t a journalist and, behind her, signs are visible; a crowd of anti-superhero protestors, standing in silent solidarity with their spokesperson.

“You refuse accountability yet you throw money at it as if that makes it all okay,” she continues fiercely. “Property was destroyed last night. A charity project was ruined and a man was killed. And you still stand there and claim that you are all heroes? Two former _assassins_? I’ve read the files leaked after SHIELD fell. I don’t trust anyone like those two to protect us. And Banner?”

“The Hulk wasn’t involved last night,” Tony starts.

“But what if he _had_ been? At any time, he could lose control, and innocent people are the ones who pay the price. Why should someone die just because he exists? Because he can’t be controlled?” She counters. “And Thor! He claims to protect this world, but why would he care about us? _His_ world is safe. It was _his_ family drama that spilled over to Earth and caused the Battle of New York. What did he do after Loki was subdued? He took him back to their world. It was _our_ planet, _our_ city, _our_ people who were destroyed, but we had no say in what happened to him. We weren’t able to hold him accountable. Instead, he was whisked off and no one knows if he’s even being punished.”

Thor clears his throat, leaning in to the microphone. “I can assure you -.”

“You can’t assure anything!” she replies. “Even Captain America is nothing more than a hoax. He supposedly died to protect humanity, but he didn’t protect _anything_. Hydra still exists. They’re still out there and he _worked_ for SHIELD when they were tied with Hydra. How can we trust someone like that? How can we trust someone who refused to hand over his best friend to be held accountable for decades worth of murder? How can we trust someone who failed to save _one man_ last night? And Stark…you’re the worst of them. So much blood on your hands and yet still you create weapons. The bombs weren’t your worst weapon. The Iron Man armor isn’t your greatest one. _You_ are. You’re dangerous and it’s time the power went back into the right hands. It’s time you were all held accountable. _We_ should all have a say, not just those with money or superpowers.”

There’s a brief scuffle as the protestors shout their agreement and journalists are quick to latch on to the fresh drama, spitting questions at Tony and the rest of the team. Tony takes control, tries to guide the conference back into safe territory, but it’s too late. The damage is done.

Julia keeps browsing and it’s incredible; celebrities, politicians, the top of the wealthy elite, dozens of them coming together in agreement, questioning the Avengers, debating the accountability of superheroes, blaming Tony Stark for last night’s disaster. Both people in the government and normal, everyday civilians in the street are having their say and all of it is negative, vocally campaigning for the Avengers to be held accountable. 

He knows Julia’s taken the minds of plenty of important people, that a lot of the faces on the news now are her puppets, but he wonders how many of them _aren’t_ , how many of them have simply been swayed by the overall shift in opinion against superheroes. It’s like a row of dominoes, neatly lined up and last night, Julia gently tapped the first one. Now they’re all falling, her plan snapping neatly into place.

Eventually, she turns off the computer altogether. “I told you,” she says softly. “Chase’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

Stiles sets his empty bowl on the table and leans forward. “They didn’t say anything about me. About you.”

“They won’t, not yet,” she replies. “They’re being careful. If they mention mind control, it’ll just bring up accusations of Stark or any one of the team being controlled and manipulated. It won’t benefit them. And I doubt they’ll mention you. They’re trying to protect you.”

Stiles swallows. “They won’t forgive me for last night.”

“No. But they’re still trying to save you. That’s good, Stiles. We can use that against them.”

He looks down at his hands. His eyes feel gritty, muscles exhausted from his early work-out. He just feels so _drained_. That buzzing lingers in his head, zipping through his skull like threads of electricity, and he just wants everything to stop for a while.

“What now?” he asks. “This was the first step. We need to keep the ball rolling before the Avengers can start to shift public opinion again.”

She smiles. “I’m already on it.” She leans forward, catching his gaze. “Darling, how’s your German?”

He shrugs. “ _Akzeptabel_.”

Her smile widens, all dark red lips and pearly white teeth. “Perfect.”

***

Stiles glances out of the plane window, watching the veins of the city sprawl out far below them.

Next to him, Erin’s already focused on a book. Stiles watches her for a moment, swings his gaze across the other seats, giving in to the tangle of nerves in his gut. They didn’t have any issues in the airport or while boarding, but he can’t allow himself to relax, not yet.

There’s no reason anyone should know about this. One of Julia’s contacts had secured them the passports, ID and relevant paperwork for their covers, plus the tickets for the flights. They’re dressed to match their covers, so they shouldn’t be recognized, and Stiles is pretty sure Stark and SHIELD will still be busy dealing with the aftermath of New Year’s Eve, so they won’t be focused on him again just yet.

Erin is Anna Richardson, a business analyst on a corporate trip. She’s dressed to match her cover in a tidy grey pantsuit and high heeled boots, her hair disguised under a strawberry-blond wig and tortoiseshell glasses on her face. Stiles is Michael Jones, her assistant, and he’s wearing black slacks and a neat shirt and sweater combo to match Michael’s role and persona; his wig is dark honey-blond and black wire-framed glasses perch on his nose. 

Kowalski’s sat across the aisle from them, head tipped back as he sleeps. He’s Eric Moore, their translator, and he’s dressed similarly to Stiles, except his wig is dark brown, he’s not wearing glasses, and he’s grown in a thin moustache. 

If Stiles is honest, he’s getting sick of disguises. It had been fun, thrilling, the first time he donned one, on that mission with Allison. Now, though, he has to disguise himself every single time he goes outside, and it’s tiring. He wants to be _himself_ , even just for a little while.

Julia’s back at the bunker. It’s safer for her to stay there instead of joining them on this operation. She has her own job to do, but for now, she needs to keep laying low, away from SHIELD’s radar.

The last time he’d been on a commercial flight was with Steve. He closes his eyes and he can recall with perfect, painful clarity the way Steve’s eyes shone blue in the light slanting through the window, the way he laughed softly and pitched his voice low so he wouldn’t disturb anyone. He can remember how Steve’s hand had felt on his knee, warm and grounding, can almost feel an echo of the fondness Stiles had felt as Steve read for almost the entire flight. 

He sleeps and he dreams of blood. Remembers the sick, gruesome slide of crushed muscle dripping to the floor, discarded carelessly next a mangled corpse. Chase’s veins are between Stiles’s lips, sliding between his teeth like a macabre version of flossing, and the taste of copper is thick and dirty on his tongue. He digs his hand into viscera, cuts his palms on sharp, broken bone, feels blood and gore, still _hot_ , still slick and wet and almost alive, even though Chase stares up at him, eyes vacant, unseeing. He’s dead. There’s a hole in his chest where his heart should be, ribs punched inwards, piercing the remains of his lungs and his intestines. The stench is vicious, ruthless, and Stiles gags, but keeps searching until he finds the splattered mess of what was once a heart. His fingers touch it and it’s still hot.

It beats once, twice, three times, hard and accusing, and Stiles jerks back, scrambles across the road until he collides with cold metal. He looks up and a robot stares impassively back, gleaming silver splattered with the blood of the hundreds of fallen bodies littering the streets. It stares at him and it waits, waits for him to speak, waits for his instructions, because it belongs to him, because he did this, all of this -.

His eyes open and a choked sound snaps between his teeth. 

Erin glances up from her book, assessing him for a moment. Then she reaches into her carry-on bag and retrieves a bar of chocolate, holding it out to him.

He swallows, taking it with trembling fingers. “Thanks.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks.

Stiles fumbles to open the wrapper and sinks his teeth into chocolate. It’s dark, bitter rather than milky, but the burst of smooth cocoa on his tongue is comforting. He lets it melt and slide thickly down his throat.

“I dreamed about Chase,” he admits. He doesn’t know why he feels so horrified still, why the dream would be so harsh, so _wrong_. Chase _chose_ to sacrifice himself. It’s Stiles’s duty now to honor it. 

“I dreamed about him last night,” Erin murmurs. “Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can’t get the image of his body out of my head. I wonder…I wonder how my son will look at me when I return home.”

Cool reassurance slides down Stiles’s spine and curls in his belly. He’s not alone; Erin dreams too, has the same thoughts and doubts and fears that he does. He’s not a failure to Julia, or not loyal enough, or too weak. If Erin feels the same, experiences the same kind of dreams, then it’s not just him, and the thought fills him with sharp, giddying relief.

“We’re doing this for them,” he says after a moment. “For your son. And…and Steve.” 

“Do you think he’ll forgive you for turning the world against him?”

Stiles swallows. He licks sticky chocolate off his teeth before answering, “I don’t think so. But what people are saying is true. Superheroes need to be held accountable. We’ll never get rid of the evil unless we stop _all_ of the people with powers or weapons. They have to retire. I think…in the long run, Steve will understand. But I don’t think he’ll forgive me.”

She reaches out, curling her fingers around his wrist. “Then he’s a righteous idiot and he doesn’t deserve you.”

He thinks about Chase’s body, thinks about robots destroying the city and Tony Stark stood in front of the press, battered and bruised and ready to be fed to the sharks thirsting for his blood. 

Because of Stiles.

And he laughs, sharp and bitter, because he thinks if he doesn’t, he might cry.

***

Snow crunches underneath Stiles’s boots. 

It’s freezing, turning his bones to ice, and his breath fogs in front of his face. He can feel the cold slide into his lungs with each breath, simultaneously refreshing and uncomfortable.

He flexes his fingers, his leather gloves creaking at the movement, and huddles a little tighter inside his coat. Next to him, Kowalski pauses to check his compass and map.

“We’re almost there,” he says.

Stiles squints against harsh winter sunlight, but all he can see is trees, snow and…more snow. He huffs, watching the exhale plume white in front of his face. 

“Hate to break it to you,” he mutters. “But I don’t see any base.”

After weeks of searching, Julia found Adrian Klapow, facial recognition software flagging him up in some CCTV footage taken near Zurich. Some digging into her files on Hydra plus some calls to her never ending list of contacts, and she’d discovered an old Hydra hideout, incredibly rural and brilliantly concealed. 

It’s no question that Ward has been hiding Klapow, wanting to keep the serum away from Julia and SHIELD. Now, though, they have a lead on the scientist’s whereabouts, and as much as Stiles _really_ doesn’t want to face Grant Ward again, it might be necessary. Klapow is vital to the next stage of their plan.

“Co-ordinates match up to the intel Julia gave us,” Kowalski says with a shrug. “We’ll find it.”

“Hey, can anyone else feel their lips?” Stiles asks. “I can’t feel my lips. They’re numb. That’s bad, right?”

“It’s cold, Stiles,” Erin replies. “It’s normal.”

Kowalski takes a step forward. Stiles glances over, opens his mouth to speak – and then snaps his teeth shut, reaching out to grab Kowalski’s arm and jerk him back.

“What?” the older man demands.

Stiles points to a thin sliver of wire, barely visible against the snow. “Booby trap. We’re definitely close.”

“Guys,” Erin says. “Look.”

Stiles follows her gaze, but all he can see is bleak, brittle trees and thick, never ending snow. He makes a questioning noise and Erin points.

“ _Really_ look,” she insists. “Doesn’t it look a little odd to you? A little too perfect?”

Stiles frowns and stares harder. A feeling of discomfort slips through him because she’s right; the swath of trees ahead of them isn’t quite right. It’s too perfect, a mirror of the woods to their left, and when he focuses, he can see a slight ripple, a kind of shimmer as he steps closer, carefully avoiding the trip wire.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he says. “That’s _brilliant_.”

Erin slides her backpack off her shoulder and digs inside it, pulling out a small EMP device. She clicks the button and a muted crackle zips through the air, raising the hair on the back of Stiles’s neck.

The illusion falls away and the three of them are left staring at a small, squat cabin.

“Holy shit,” Kowalski mutters. “Hydra really don’t fuck around, huh?”

“Ward has some cool gadgets,” Stiles admits grudgingly. “Unsurprisingly, that just wants me to punch his face in even more.”

Erin smiles slightly. “If you’re lucky, you might just get your chance.”

He turns, staring at her. “Are you serious?” he asks, incredulous. “Yeah, I want to kick his ass, but I definitely don’t wanna face off against him again. The guy is…he’s a jackal, okay? He’s brutal and he _enjoys_ it, enjoys hurting people. He squeezed my neck like he was juicing a fucking orange and he smiled the whole time.”

Kowalski’s hand finds Stiles’s shoulder, solid and reassuring. “This time you have us,” he says. “It’ll be fine.”

Stiles blows out a breath. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Let’s go knock on the door and see if the Big Bad Wolf answers.”

He slides a knife out of his boot and approaches the cabin. It’s rustic, simple and homely looking, but he’s willing to bet it’s decked out of the wazoo with security measures. He keeps an eye out for booby traps as they get closer, stepping over two more trip wires before he reaches the door.

He glances at Kowalski, shrugs slightly, and knocks three times.

No traps go off; the woods are silent, the thick snow muffling the sound of any wildlife. There’s no birdsong, no howling wind, nothing but the sound of their own breathing as they wait, tense and ready to spring into action. Less than a minute later, the door swings open.

Klapow blinks – and then holds his hands up. 

“Oh thank god,” he says. “I surrender.”

Stiles exchanges a look with Erin. She looks Klapow up and down for a moment and then offers Stiles a little shrug, letting him take the lead on this.

“Ward here?” he asks, taking a step forward, testing the waters.

Klapow instantly moves aside, allowing the three of them into the cabin. Stiles does a quick sweep, looking for any traps or weapons within the scientist’s reach, but there’s nothing immediately obvious. 

“No, no,” Klapow rushes to say. “He left for supplies. But he will be back soon.” He twists his hands in front of him. “I know you,” he says to Stiles. “You’re SHIELD.” 

“Yeah. I’m the one Ward kicked out of a window. Good times.” 

“Oh thank god,” Klapow repeats, sagging slightly against the wall. “You’ve come to arrest me.” 

Stiles glances at Kowalski. He hadn’t expected this; he’d expected a fight, he’d expected Ward, but he definitely hadn’t considered the idea that Klapow might willingly surrender for arrest. 

“Sure,” he says finally. “We’re here to arrest you.”

“Then we must hurry,” Klapow insists. “Before he returns.”

“So get what you need and let’s get moving, Doc.”

Klapow rushes like a startled squirrel around the cabin, quickly packing a duffel bag with what he needs. Within minutes, he’s geared up and ready to go, expression tight with anxiety. Stiles has no idea what Ward’s game has been with Klapow, but he’s clearly not been holding back on the whole being a raging asshole thing.

They leave the cabin and move quicker now they know the route back and don’t need to be as cautious. Stiles lets Kowalski guide, since the guy seems to enjoy going back to basics with a compass and a map.

“So,” Stiles says. “I’m guessing you weren’t a willing companion with Ward.”

Klapow shakes his head. “No. After the hotel, he took me prisoner. He’s been moving us all over, hiding me from SHIELD and from -.”

“Jennifer Blake,” Stiles finishes. “Yeah. I’m guessing he doesn’t want either to get their hands on your advanced formula.”

“He wants to keep it all for Hydra,” Klapow bites out. “I will not provide that much power to such evil.”

Stiles snorts. “Can it, Doc. I’m not buying it. You were more than happy to sell the formula to him before, so I doubt you give a damn about it being used by nefarious douchebags like Ward.”

He pauses, then sighs. “Was worth a try,” he admits. “No, I agreed to sell it. I needed the money. I did not agree to be taken prisoner and kept as a hostage, forced to produce the formula for Ward’s men. Even a SHIELD prison is better than that.”

“Uh huh,” Stiles replies. “You’re not gonna get a deal, but nice try.”

Klapow shrugs slightly. They keep walking and he glances between the three of them, gaze lingering on Kowalski’s map. He searches the sky for a jet, shoulders starting to hunch in as blatant suspicion creeps over his face.

“You’re not here for SHIELD, are you?” he says eventually, resignation lacing his tone.

Stiles shakes his head. “Nope.”

“You’re one of hers. Jennifer Blake’s. She sent you.”

“Yep.”

“Сукин сын,” he mutters.

Stiles smiles slightly. “Please don’t insult my mother,” he replies. “She was a wonderful person.”

Klapow blinks at him and then proceeds to start muttering under his breath, an increasingly foul string of cussing and complaining. Clearly, he doesn’t think being Julia’s prisoner is any more appealing than being Ward’s. 

Stiles leaves him to it for a while, listening to the sound of snow under their boots as they forge forwards. When he catches Klapow sliding a glance to the right, though, he tucks his hands into his pockets and offers, cheerfully, “You can try to run if you like. But we have an offer for you.”

Klapow hesitates. “An offer?”

“Julia has no interest in _keeping_ you. She just needs some of your formula. Once you’re done, you can go. We won’t turn you into SHIELD or return you to Ward. Julia will give you what you need to get away and start up a new life under a false identity. That’s what you want, right?”

He chews that over for a minute, eyes narrowed suspiciously on Stiles. “Why should I believe that you will actually let me go?”

He shrugs and meets Klapow’s gaze. “Well, I could break your kneecaps to make sure you can’t run and dose you up on something that will make you nice and compliant for the flight,” he replies calmly. “But that would make things a little trickier, so I’d prefer not to. Besides, Julia doesn’t care about you or what you’ve done. So long as she gets what she needs, you can go sailing off into the sunset for all she gives a damn. It’s a better offer than you would get from SHIELD or Ward.”

Klapow’s a genius. Stiles can see him turning it over in his mind but, truthfully, the older man already knows he doesn’t exactly have much of a choice. Eventually, he sighs and nods. 

“Fine,” he agrees. “I accept your deal.”

Stiles grins. “Smart move.”

They spend a second night in their hotel, keeping their cover sealed tight to avoid suspicion. Klapow spends most of the time complaining, clearly not happy about staying put for another twenty four hours; he keeps glancing at the door as if he expects Ward to burst through it at any moment.

Stiles can admit that he’s a little nervous, too. Ward will know that Klapow’s gone by now and will be searching for him and anyone that might have taken him. He doesn’t sleep, volunteers instead to keep watch the whole night, and he’s relieved when they finally get to the airport the next day, donned in their disguises. Klapow’s dressed in the disguise they provided for him and had spent the evening before memorizing his cover, but there’s not much need; they board without any trouble.

Stiles settles in his seat, glancing around at the other passengers. When they’re in the air, he finally starts to relax and leans back with a sigh. He’s exhausted. 

“Get some sleep,” Erin suggests gently. 

He nods, shifting to get comfortable. It’s easy to give in to the tiredness and let it drag him under, but it’s a lot harder to _stay_ asleep. He dreams in vivid red and cold grey, flashes of blood and gore and cool, betrayed blue eyes that leave him feeling guilty and unsettled. He wakes frequently, twitching and frowning, and when they finally land, he’s barely managed to get any proper sleep at all.

He’s tense as they leave the airport, wondering if Klapow will try and make a move to escape, but he seems to have accepted Julia’s deal as his safest option for now. The promise of money and a new identity is enough to keep him cooperative. 

Still, Stiles doesn’t quite relax completely until they reach the safehouse. Klapow gives the interior an obvious look of disdain and Stiles almost makes a comment that it’s better than a prison cell, but he bites it back and stays silent as he leads the scientist down into the bunker.

Julia’s waiting for them. She smiles, beautiful and approving, and gives the three of them a brief, warm hug.

“I knew you could do it,” she praises. “Well done. Did Ward show?”

Stiles shakes his head. “We managed to avoid him.”

“Good.” 

She turns to Klapow, looking him up and down. His back straightens and he grips his own wrist, eyeing her like she’s a predator; he twitches like he’s considering bolting, unease splitting across his expression. He knows she’s dangerous, can sense it, and he avoids her eyes like she might swallow him whole if he dares look at her properly.

Julia smiles and reaches out, gently touching his cheek. “Adrian,” she says softly. “Look at me, please.”

Pale eyes snap up, locking gazes with Julia, and she grins, leaning closer, body angled like an animal about to pounce. Her power unfurls around them, eyes shifting to gleaming silver-white, and the tension drains out of Klapow as he stares back, expression going slack. 

“Good,” she murmurs. “You are mine now, do you understand that?”

“I’m yours,” he repeats.

“That’s right. And you’re going to help me, aren’t you? Whatever I need?”

“Whatever you need.”

She beams at him, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, darling.”

Her power pulls back again, receding like mist until it sinks back into her. Klapow blinks, shakes himself slightly, but the anxiety has left his face. He just gazes at Julia expectantly, waiting to hear what it is she needs.

“Come,” Julia says, walking towards the kitchenette. “We’ll get to work later, but you should eat.” 

He follows close on her heels like a puppy and Stiles heads straight for the sleeping quarters. He grabs a towel and slips into the bathroom, taking a long, steaming hot shower to chase away the lingering chill and ache in his muscles. When he’s done, he dries off and dresses in sweatpants and a sweater he’d stolen from Steve. 

The quarters are still empty when he heads back out. He climbs onto his bunk and curls up, rolling onto his side. When he tucks his nose into the collar of the sweater, he imagines he can catch the faint trace of Steve’s soap, and it fills him with warm comfort. He closes his eyes and breathes it in, willing his mind to shut the hell up for a while.

Alone and in a bunker underneath a lonely, snow-laden street, he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to clarify here that the opinions expressed against Tony Stark and the rest of the team in this chapter in no way reflect my own. I love all of them.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: blood, gore and a death (within a dream), suicide (while compelled by mind control, but it isn't graphically described), canon-typical violence in the form of sparring, and a minor background character uses the word 'pussy' in a derogatory way. 
> 
> Also, the usual warning for Julia being creepy and uncomfortable.

_The explosion rocks the whole street, sends glass and rubble punching outwards and shockwaves cracking towards Stiles._

_Even from his distance, he’s certain he can FEEL it, feel the heat and the fire and the destruction, swarming inside his head and eating through his skin to get to his bones. The flames make a home there, coiling like ribbons around his ribs, drilling into his teeth to settle in the sockets. It burns, everything burns, but he can’t look away from the building as it collapses, spitting chunks of concrete and brick across the road._

_He needs to leave – he can feel the urge pounding through him, aching in his legs – but he moves forward instead, tugged ruthlessly by an invisible thread, pulling and pulling until he reaches the edge of the destruction._

_Between the rubble, he can see bits of metal gleaming. Even scorched and blown into ragged pieces, the red and gold is unmistakable._

_He doesn’t realize he’s on his knees until they start to hurt, grit biting into his skin. He’s shaking, choked sounds escaping his throat, and he wants to scream but he can’t, she won’t LET him, and she’s in his ear, a cold slither that coils around his throat and whispers to him, telling him to leave, to walk away._

_Something lands in front of Stiles, slamming into the road hard enough to crack it. He reaches out with trembling fingers; the metal burns his fingertips, searing his flesh but he doesn’t pull away._

_Instead, he rolls the piece of armor over and stares at Iron Man’s helmet. Blood and flesh cling to the neck of it, stuck on the sharp pieces of broken metal. Tony’s blood. Tony’s flesh. The eyes, normally glowing with vicious, fuck-you life, are dark and empty._

_Lifeless._

***

He wakes up and the world is quiet and still.

He’s warm; he can hear the portable heater nearby, breathing hot, musty air into the room. He can feel the itchiness of a crocheted blanket tucked over him that wasn’t there when he lay down on the couch for a nap. 

For once, his mind is slow and peaceful. He relishes in it, savours the cool bliss he can taste in the back of his throat, soothing like fresh, clean water. He’d never felt serenity like this until he met Julia; it fills him, smoothing out his sharp edges and the cruel teeth of brutal dreams, chasing away all of the ghosts suffocating inside his ribcage. It’s beautiful, shrouding him in a calm, gentle happiness. He’s never been religious, never believed in Heaven or Hell, but he believes that if there is an Afterlife, it would feel like this. 

There are fingers in his hair, dragging through the strands, fingernails scratching lightly across his scalp. It feels familiar, reminds him of when he was a little kid and he was sick or he had a bad dream; he’d feel his mom’s hand on his head, smoothing over his buzzcut and scratching his scalp in a reassuring way that always helped him get to sleep.

He hasn’t felt comfort like this since his mom died and he stays still, focuses on the gentle touch, lets it fill him with an aching kind of calmness. 

“You had a bad dream,” Julia says, her voice pitched low, like feathers falling against his ear. “You were mumbling in your sleep. You have these often, don’t you?”

Stiles doesn’t open his eyes. “Feels like every time I sleep, I dream. I’m so tired, Julia.”

“I know. I know, darling. It’ll all be over soon, I promise.” She leans down, kisses his forehead tenderly. “It’s different when you’re asleep. I can’t reach you as well. It’s like you’re too far out of my grasp, your mind locked away even from me. It’s unsettling. That’s why you have the dreams. I can’t help ease them.”

“But you can reach me now,” he murmurs. “You’re here now.”

“You’re mine,” she replies, quiet and affectionate. “Of course I’m here now.” 

Stiles shifts slightly to get comfortable, rolling onto his back so his hip stops aching. The couch isn’t the comfiest, but it’s better than the metal bunks in the sleeping quarters. Julia’s fingers return to his hair and he sighs slightly. 

“You’re smiling,” she says fondly. “Tell me what you’re thinking about?”

Even with his eyes closed, her power still wraps like a thick blanket around him, tugging the words out of his mouth. “My mom. She used to stroke my hair when I had bad dreams. It’s…it’s comforting.”

“Tell me about her.”

Stiles doesn’t want to; it’s hard to talk about his mom, especially right now, when he’s sure there’s blood on his hands even though he’d cleaned them fifty times this morning. He’s told Steve a little about her, had taken him to visit her grave, but even with him, Stiles doesn’t talk about her a lot. 

“Stiles,” she prompts, voice thrumming with that quiet, crackling power, and he has no choice. 

“Her name was Claudia. She was named after her maternal grandmother, who was French; she used to spend summers in Normandy at her grandparents’ cottage. She loved it. She always promised that she would take me there someday, but she never…she never got the chance.” He swallows, pausing to take a breath before he continues. “She met my dad at college and that was it. She was smitten. After they graduated, she moved back to Beacon Hills with him. She was a childminder. I remember coming home from school and she’d be covered in paint or glitter, and she’d smell like formula milk and glue and she’d…she’d be stood there, in the kitchen, with the sun in her hair and a smile on her face. She was always smiling, always laughing. She loved wildflowers but hated gardening. She was allergic to cats and she always wanted a dog. And every night, without fail, even when she was sick and in the hospital, she would read me a story.”

“You loved her very much, didn’t you?” Julia says softly.

“She was my mom. Of course I did.”

“I’m sure she loved you, too. I’m sorry you lost her at such a young age.” 

Stiles exhales slowly, a familiar ache of grief twisting in his chest. “I miss her.”

“I know, darling. But do you know what I think?” Her lips brush his ear, breath tickling the sensitive skin. When she speaks, her power unfolds again, but gentler than before, silky smooth, insidious and comforting all at once. “I think she would see what you are doing now and be so, so proud of you. She’d know that you’re doing the right thing, she’d see the sacrifices you’re making to protect people. She loved kids, she took care of them, and to see you being so strong and so selfless in order to make sure children will be safe…she would be so incredibly proud, Stiles. I know I am.”

His next breath is a little wet, tangled up in the beginnings of a sob. The thought of his mom being proud of him is beautiful and achingly bittersweet all at once, but something inside of him – the last embers of fight lingering in his core – snuffs out, settled by the knowledge that his mom would know he’s doing the right thing, that she would be proud of him for doing all of this.

“Get some sleep,” Julia suggests. “I’ll be right here. I promise.”

Stiles reaches out and tangles his fingers with hers, holding on loosely. He focuses and he can feel her in his mind, a cool, comforting presence coiled at the base of his skull, and he embraces it, embraces her, because he needs it now.

These days, he doesn’t know what he would do _without_ her control.

***

It takes nearly a month for Klapow’s work to be complete.

He has Bruce’s files and finished formula plus his own research, but the serum isn’t exactly easily whipped up in a secret underground bunker. It takes time for Julia to forge the right contacts in order to get everything Klapow needs, especially when they have to be careful to avoid suspicion.

Eventually, though, there are ten small, slim vials lined up on the table, filled with a yellowish green, viscous liquid. 

“It looks like bile,” Stiles says. “Is it supposed to look like bile?”

Klapow gives him a dark look. “ _That_ ,” he snips, “is pure strength in a vial. Have some respect.” 

“So what you’re saying is…pure strength looks like bile.”

The scientist whips around to face him properly, irritation crackling in his voice as he replies, “One vial of that stuff will turn you into a _god_.”

Stiles snorts. “I’ve met a god, so I think I’m qualified enough to call bullshit on that.”

Erin reaches out, picking up one of the vials. She lifts it until the light catches the liquid, making it shimmer slightly. When she tips it, the serum sucks sluggishly up one side of the glass. 

“What does it do, exactly?” she asks.

“It makes you strong,” Stiles answers. “Like, really, _really_ strong. And hard to take down if you know what you’re doing, which most of the subjects I’ve met who’ve juiced up on it haven’t. Gotta be careful, though; the wrong stuff will scoop you out and leave you hollow when it wears off.”

“That was Boyce’s work,” Klapow protests. “He changed it and ruined it. It burned him up. Mine doesn’t do that. And it doesn’t wear off nearly as quick as his did.”

Stiles shrugs. “It’s kinda like beefed up adrenaline,” he adds to Erin. “Though I don’t think you’ll want to pump yourself up on it for an extended period of time, no matter how vehemently Doc insists that it’s safe.”

“ _Beefed up adrenaline_?” Klapow repeats incredulously. “You take my serum and you could go toe to toe with a super soldier!”

Stiles squints at him. “Have you ever actually gone toe to toe with a super soldier?” he asks. “’Cause I have. Two of them. There’s a reason they’re called ‘ _super soldiers_ ’ and not ‘ _jacked up on some knockoff strength serum soldiers_ ’, and it’s not just because that’s kind of a mouthful.”

Klapow’s expression turns sour but he doesn’t argue, because as arrogant as he is, he’s also smart enough to know that Stiles is right. It takes someone pretty powerful to go up against Steve and Bucky when they’re fighting for real and _win_.

“Boys,” Julia says with a smile, resting a hand on their chests. “No bickering.” She glances at Klapow. “Well done, Adrian. You did so well.”

He smiles, posture relaxing. “Will ten vials be enough?”

“I should think so. Thank you, darling.”

Klapow smiles, closing his eyes slightly when she leans up to kiss his cheek. She steps back, running gentle, reverent fingertips across the vials, the quiet _clink_ of glass filling the brief silence. She picks one up, examining the contents.

“So you just inject it?” she checks.

He nods. “It isn’t a pleasant feeling at first, but it passes.”

“How long does it last?”

“This batch, with Dr Banner’s adjustments to the formula? I can only estimate, but I would say between ten and twelve hours. But the comedown will be rough.”

Julia nods, replacing the vial on the table. “Wonderful. Thank you. But it’s time for you to go now.”

“Go? You don’t…need me anymore?” 

“You’ve done what I asked you to do and you did it perfectly,” she replies. “I promised I wouldn’t keep you prisoner, remember?”

He nods. “So I can leave?”

Julia steps forward and cups his face, silver slanting across her eyes. “Thank you, Adrian. You’ve been so good for me. There’s just one last thing I need you to do. I want you to leave your belongings here. You’re going to leave the house via the kitchen. Make sure you’re not seen by any cameras until you’re six blocks away. And then I want you to go into the nearest subway station, wait for an incoming train, and throw yourself onto the tracks. Will you do that for me, darling?”

Misty white flickers in Klapow’s eyes. “I’ll do it.”

She smiles, patting his cheek fondly before releasing him. “Go.”

Stiles watches as Klapow turns and silently leaves the bunker, not pausing to put on a coat suitable for the brittle early February weather. The door shuts behind him and Stiles turns to look at Julia.

“That wasn’t the deal we offered him,” he murmurs.

Her brow furrows. “Stiles, darling, he wasn’t a good person.”

“I know. But...”

Her fingers find his, squeezing gently. “I know it seems cruel. But it will be a quick death. He’s facing it without fear or sorrow; that’s a _gift_ , Stiles, to die with peace instead of terror or regret. I couldn’t run the risk of Ward finding him again. If Hydra got their hands on this serum, imagine what they could do. We can’t let that happen, can we?”

He shakes his head slightly. “No,” he agrees. “We can’t. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Your heart is full of compassion, Stiles. I admire that. But it’s that steel I need.” She rests her hand on his belly. “That fire in your gut, _that’s_ why I chose you. So let it burn, okay?”

“I will.”

She smiles, giving his stomach an affectionate pat before turning back to the vials, picking one up. She taps her thumbnail gently against the glass, expression thoughtful for a moment, and then her face clears and she carefully tucks the vials away in a safe, sealing it shut.

Stiles knows what the next stage of Julia’s plan entails. It isn’t the risks that scare him or even the thought of the serum itself, although both make him a little uneasy. It’s his role in it that has his belly tangled up in tight knots, his sternum aching with an empty kind of bitterness that’s as familiar to him now as the moles on his skin and the beat of his own heart.

He’ll have to face them. And he wants to see them, wants to see Steve, properly. He wants to talk to them, explain, make them see sense and understand why Stiles is doing this. He wants to convince them to back down and let it happen, because if they don’t, he knows there’s a strong, horrible possibility that he will have to take them out if they keep fighting back. 

But he’s sharply aware that it won’t work. They won’t listen, they won’t understand, and seeing them again, knowing they don’t trust him, knowing that he might have to fight them…it _hurts_. The bitterness cracks open his chest, awakening a void inside him that batters like a hurricane inside his ribs. He has to do this. He has no choice. But he knows it will hurt him more than broken bones or bleeding wounds ever could.

Julia’s fingers ghost up his bare arm, nails scraping lightly at his skin to pull him back into the moment, snatching him away from his own mind. “I’m in the mood for macaroni and cheese.”

Stiles catches her hand and brings it up to his mouth, brushing a kiss over her knuckles before he lets go and heads into the kitchenette. 

It’s easy to forget about the howling inside his chest when he focuses on cooking. He settles into the rhythmic, familiar routine, chopping up veggies – because squirreling away in an underground bunker doesn’t mean they have to skip out on important nutrients – and grating cheese. He makes a huge pan of macaroni cheese, enough for them to have leftovers for the next few days because he knows Erin and Andrzej would survive on instant noodles and hot pockets otherwise. 

Erin gathers plates and cutlery and Andrzej pours out cups of soda. Julia leans against the wall, watching the three of them with a soft, fond smile on her face. It’s almost domestic and, in a way, comforting, and Stiles lets the warmth of _this_ family chase away the lingering echoes of his old one. 

They eat sat around the coffee table. Julia sets up one of the computers, flicking through channels to settle on a news segment. 

“- station is still closed while investigations are underway,” the anchor woman is saying, speaking into a microphone outside a subway station. 

Stiles pauses, staring at the screen. Klapow succeeded, then; they don’t show the remains being removed and whisked away by coroners, but the death has been confirmed. 

Julia glances at him and changes over to a reality TV show. Stiles sits back, listens to Andrzej and Julia argue over which one of the people screaming at each other in front of cameras is right, both of them breaking down into laughter when the argument on screen descends into pure suburban chaos. Erin rolls her eyes but she’s smiling slightly and she catches Stiles’s gaze, offering a little wink. He feels his mouth pull up in an answering smile. 

Andrzej clears up the plates and Julia washes up. Stiles moves to one of the computer terminals and pulls up the footage from the security cameras set up around the block. He gets comfortable in his chair, dragging a knitted throw off the back off the couch to wrap around him like a cocoon.

The others linger, settling in on the couch. They watch TV and Julia purposefully avoids anything too serious; instead, the canned laughter from a sitcom fills the bunker, soon harmonized with Julia’s summer-breeze laugh. Stiles lets it fade into white noise, comforting but not distracting, and gazes at the computer screen, keeping watch. 

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. But for now, he can enjoy this pocket of warmth and companionship. 

Eventually, Erin calls it a night and disappears into the sleeping quarters. Kowalski hangs around for another half an hour before going to bed. Julia tidies up and moves to stand behind Stiles.

“Stiles, darling?” she asks. Her voice is quiet, tension threading through it. “You would never betray me, would you?”

Stiles tips his head back to look at her. “Never.”

She rubs slightly at the scar on her throat. “You won’t leave me?”

He hesitates. If they pull this off, if everything works out and he somehow avoids jail or, hell, _death_ , then he’d like to return to the tower. If he’s not welcome there, then he’ll go to his friends, or his dad. If he’s not welcome anywhere, though, then he’d gladly stay with Julia, even if it means hiding out for the rest of their lives. If he had to, he could make this bunker a home.

“Don’t leave me,” she murmurs. “Stay with me. Please.”

Stiles swallows. “I’ll stay,” he agrees. “I…I won’t leave you alone. I owe it to you. I never feel alone now. Not while you’re in here.” He taps his temple.

She smiles softly. “You would never hurt me, would you, Stiles?”

“ _Never_ ,” he vows.

She places her hands on his shoulders, thumbs stroking gently. He leans back into the touch, letting her small, careful hands ease the tension out of his body. She bends forward and her hair tickles his neck, her lips pressing a brief kiss to the crown of his head.

“Do you love me?” 

The vulnerability crackling in her voice splits Stiles’s heart right open. “Yes. I love you.”

“Good. I love you too. All of you.” She slips her arms around his shoulders in a backwards hug, tucking her face into his neck. “Thank you for being mine.”

Stiles reaches up, loosely curling his fingers around her wrists, offering her comfort. She stays there for a long time, hugged close to him, and he strokes the fragile skin of her wrist in a soothing, repetitive motion, sweeping little circles over the ridge of her veins. Her breath is damp against his neck, her hair shrouding him, and everything is still and silent. 

Eventually, she presses a little kiss to his temple and pulls away, fingertips sliding down his shoulder as she steps back. She slips into the sleeping quarters, quietly shutting the door behind her.

Stiles gazes at the security footage on the screen. There’s nothing interesting to see, just a few pedestrians, some traffic, an urban fox rustling around in a dumpster. After a slow hour drags by, Stiles leans forward and taps at the keyboard, leaving Julia’s surveillance system in order to hack into the city’s CCTV grid. He finds the cameras near the Avengers tower and sits back, just watching.

At this hour, there’s nothing to see; no one going in and out of the building. Some of the windows are lit up and Stiles stares at them, imagines what the people inside are doing. Is Steve drawing? Working out? Sleeping? He aches to know, fingers twitching with the urge to contact Steve, but he can’t. He has to stick to Julia’s plan.

Still, it’s a comfort to just watch. He stays there for hours, gaze fixed on the tower until his eyes feel gummy and his body aches from sitting in the cramped chair for so long. He only switches back to the bunker’s surveillance system when Andrzej appears to take over the watch. 

Stiles gives him the chair but he doesn’t feel ready to go and sleep just yet. Instead, he heads to the makeshift gym, easing into some warm up stretches. His workout is routine now, part of a pattern he goes through each day, and keeping on top of it feels good. He can’t mimic his training with SHIELD or any one of the Avengers, but he builds up his strength and fitness, and the others in the bunker are usually happy to spar with him.

Once he starts reps with the weights, he stares at the ceiling. _For the greater good_ , he thinks, and plays those words over and over like a mantra in his mind, a tempo that matches the rhythmic rise and fall of the weights. Sweat slicks across his skin and he strains from the effort but he keeps going, losing himself to the motion.

***

Three days later, Julia leaves the base for two hours and returns with five men trailing behind her like ducklings.

Stiles is in the middle of a game of Monopoly with Erin and Kowalski and the three of them pause as the five huge, hulking mountains of muscle tower over Julia. Stiles slowly sets down the fake money in his hand, raising an eyebrow.

“New friends?” he asks.

Julia smiles and rests her hand on one of the men’s shoulder. She’s tall – only a couple of inches shorter than Stiles when she isn’t wearing heels – but she still has to stretch up on her toes to reach. The shortest of the men looks at least 6’2. 

“These,” she says. “Are our soldiers.”

Stiles looks over them. They definitely _look_ threatening; their height and bulky, muscular builds are pretty imposing. They hold themselves like fighters, too, and they’re obviously pretty strong, considering the size of their biceps. 

Erin slides her gaze over the five living mountains. “Can they fight?”

Julia smiles slightly. “Of course they can fight. Gunner, Matt and Conrad here are MMA fighters,” she says, gesturing. “And Jack and Alex are former Special Ops.”

They’re fit for their job, then. Physically intimidating with the skills and strength to back it up; with the added juice of the serum, they’ll be walking, breathing wrecking balls. Julia’s meticulous process to find their soldiers has paid off, but Stiles never expected anything less from her. 

“When do we make our move?” Kowalski asks.

“Two weeks. Until then, I want you to focus on training them.”

Stiles pulls a face. “I’m not gonna like this, am I?”

She laughs. “I just want to be sure that they’re capable. You’ve sparred with the Avengers and some of the best agents in SHIELD; you can work with our soldiers, train them up a little so they’re a little more evenly matched.”

“Two weeks won’t be enough,” he admits. “But I can show them some moves and what to expect when facing Natasha or Steve. If they know to anticipate certain styles or moves, they’ll avoid them better.”

Julia smooths a hand over the top of his hair. “Thank you, darling. For now, I’d like to test them. The three of you should see their ability. Are you up for that?”

Stiles glances at the men again. They’re still stood by the door, shuffling slightly but silent, clearly waiting for instruction from Julia. 

He shrugs slightly. “Sure.” 

She beams at him, pleased, and the approval slithers, warm and cotton-soft, between his ribs to curl around his heart. It’s something he never realized he was looking for, something he’s always sought out and savoured when he received it, whether it was from his dad or his friends or SHIELD, and having Julia’s pure, open approval slakes that thirst for it. 

He gets to his feet and points a warning finger at Erin. “Don’t cheat while I’m gone,” he accuses.

She winks. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

He snorts, not believing her for a second; she’s a dirty cheat when it comes to Monopoly and sly enough that it’s difficult to prove it. He heads into the sleeping quarters. With their new additions, it’s going to be pretty crowded, which won’t be fun. Stiles gets cabin fever enough as it is without shoving five more people into the bunker.

He changes into his work-out gear and returns to the main room. The men have bags, fully packed, and Stiles warms up while he waits for them to change into their own gear. Erin and Kowalski have moved to sit side by side on the couch, ready for a show. Stiles rolls his eyes at them and Andrzej offers a goofy thumbs up in response.

“Gunner,” Julia says when the guys join them again. “I want you to fight Stiles.” 

Gunner steps forward, cracking his knuckles slightly. He’s probably around 6’5 and built like a tank, with short honey-blond hair and big, puppy-dog brown eyes. He’s handsome, in an overly-beefy kind of way, and the smile he offers Stiles is friendly and cheerful.

He holds out his hand. “Gunner Tanner.”

“Wow, that’s an unfortunate name,” Stiles replies, shaking his hand. “No wonder you started juicing.”

“Uh,” Erin says from the couch. “Stones and glass houses, _Mieczyslaw Stilinski_.”

He pulls a face. “You’re the worst.”

Julia settles in the armchair, crossing her legs. Stiles drags a mat into the middle of the floor where they’ll have room to spar and he and Gunner step onto it, facing each other. 

“Gunner,” Julia says. “I want you to try and break one of Stiles’s fingers.”

Stiles turns, throws his hands up slightly. “Woah, wait, you want him to _what_ now?”

“Darling, are you worried he’ll actually be able to?”

He eyes Gunner who offers him a small, _what-can-you-do_ kind of shrug and a smile in response. It’s annoying; the guy is _nice_ , too nice for someone who’s now compelled to do whatever it takes to break one of Stiles’s fingers.

He knows it’s to make sure Gunner doesn’t hold back, to really provide a challenge and test Gunner’s abilities. Stiles is confident in his own strength and capability, but shit happens. A broken finger wouldn’t be the end of the world, sure, but it would really fucking suck. 

“Okay,” he says, rolling out his shoulders. “Let’s do this. Please don’t mess up my pretty face.”

Gunner’s good; patient and smart, holding back as he assesses Stiles’s speed and strength, tracks the patterns in his fighting style. Stiles lets him do it and does the same, learning and adapting as he watches Gunner move. 

When Stiles kicks, Gunner grabs his leg, and it’s _then_ that Stiles suddenly switches his tactics, taking Gunner to the mat with a quick, clean scissors takedown. The older man is taken off guard by the unexpected change in Stiles’s pattern, hadn’t anticipated the move, and Stiles gets his knee on Gunner’s throat, pressing down just enough to force Gunner to tap out.

Stiles rolls back to his feet and offers his hand. Gunner looks at it before glancing at Julia.

“Should I still break his finger?”

Stiles snatches his hand back. “Yeah, that’s a hard _fuck no_ , buddy.”

“You did well, Gunner,” Julia praises, smiling. “But please don’t break his finger. Would you like some coffee?”

Gunner follows Andrzej into the kitchenette to make a pot of coffee. Stiles stretches his arms and arches his spine, shaking himself out before he gestures for Conrad to join him on the mat.

It’s good; all five of Julia’s chosen soldiers are skilled fighters. It becomes apparent that Alex is the most evenly matched with Stiles, adapting to Stiles’s fast, flexible style pretty quickly, and Stiles appreciates the challenge. Sparring with the others helps him keep in shape, but this is what he’s been itching for, something harder, more intense. Training that really pushes him, tests him to the maximum of his capability.

He tests each of the guys and then takes a couple of them on at once, seeing just what they can do and how well they can work together. After a while, Erin and Andrzej join in, shifting the focus from testing to training, and Stiles loses himself in the familiarity of it.

He’s sweaty and tired when they’re done. A couple of spots on his body ache with the promise of bruises and he likes it, welcomes the familiar throb and pulse through his muscles. It helps ease some of the cabin fever he’s been feeling. 

He takes a long, hot shower and dresses in his Captain America sweatpants and a Henley. He tugs on a pair of grey socks; the right one actually has a black patch darned in to repair a hole in the toe and he’s pretty certain he’d accidentally stolen them from Clint somehow. 

He cooks up a feast, all of them needing it after the workout, and Julia kisses his cheek when he dishes out the food. There aren’t enough chairs now, so Stiles sits down on the floor, leaning his back against Erin’s legs as he eats. 

Jack glances over, eyeing Stiles’s sweatpants before he looks a little closer at Stiles’s face. “I thought I recognized you,” he says. “You’re Captain America’s boyfriend.”

“Maybe,” Stiles replies blandly. “Probably not anymore.”

He snorts, shovelling a forkful curry into his mouth. “I always thought that guy was kind of a pussy.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “You’re _one_ of those guys, huh?”

Jack shrugs. “Fucker juices up and runs around with a shield and thinks he’s the shit. He’s nothing more than a jumped up prick.”

Gunner frowns. “Come on, man. Don’t be a dick. Captain America’s a hero.”

Jack snorts and Stiles slowly sets down his fork. Julia’s hand finds his shoulder, thumb gently stroking at his neck to calm him down.

“Just so you know,” Stiles says evenly, gaze fixed on Jack. “Julia is the only thing right now stopping me from burying a knife in your neck. And I could, I very, very easily _could_. Just there,” he taps at his own throat. “Quick and silent. You’d bleed out before you could make a sound. So, since we’ll be sharing quarters for two weeks _and_ I’ll be responsible for kicking your ass every day…if I were you, I would really think about shutting the fuck up.”

Julia clears her throat, fingertips gliding up to Stiles’s jaw, rubbing gently at where it’s tense from him gritting his teeth. Her gaze settles on Jack and she doesn’t need to say anything; he folds back slightly, ducking his head.

“Sure,” he mutters. “Got it.”

Stiles stares him down until, eventually, Jack finishes his food, leaves his plate in the sink, and disappears into the sleeping quarters. Only then does Stiles sit back again, Erin’s legs supporting him comfortably. He finishes eating and hands his empty plate to Conrad when the other man stands to clean up.

Erin’s hand slides into Stiles’s hair, stroking through the strands in a soothing rhythm, and he closes his eyes, relaxing into the touch. Andrzej brings out the Monopoly board again, but they start a new game instead of picking up their old one so Julia and Alex can join in. 

It’s peaceful after that, aside from a brief argument over Erin cheating again. Alex turns out to be a beast at Monopoly and kicks all of their asses six ways to Sunday and Andrzej, the reigning champion until now, immediately demands a rematch. Stiles leaves them to it, heading to bed.

He’s still awake when Gunner is the last to turn in, leaving Erin on security watch. The room is completely dark; no windows to offer even the slightest bit of light. He’s starting to get used to the narrow metal bunk but it’s still uncomfortable, too rigid against his spine, making his hip ache when he tries sleeping on his side. 

He can _feel_ how packed the room is now. There aren’t enough bunkers for Jack and Alex, so they’re in sleeping bags on the floor. Stiles had been getting used to sleeping surrounded by Julia, Andrzej and Erin; now, with the keen awareness of five strangers crammed into the space, he feels too uneasy, too caged in, to sleep.

When Matt starts snoring, roaring like a goddamn chainsaw through the room, Stiles gives up. His bunk creaks slightly as he eases off of it but no one stirs; he tugs on his boots and a thick sweater and slips out of the room.

Erin glances up. “Nightmare?” she asks. 

He shakes his head. “Can’t sleep. I’m gonna…” he gestures to the door and she nods. 

He leaves the bunker and heads upstairs into the cold, empty house. The stairs creak as he climbs them, peeling paint on the banister crackling under his palm. He goes straight up to the top floor and into the room with his armchair; he settles in it, dragging a slightly dusty, heavy blanket over him to ward off the cold. 

It’s raining, slanting down outside the window in thick sheets. Fat droplets patter against the glass and the sound is familiar and comforting. Stiles curls his legs underneath him and gets as comfortable as he can, listening to the sound of the rain and watching it through the window. It’s peaceful; he feels like he’s in his own little bubble, floating on the whisper of rain and the buzz in the back of his head. 

He falls asleep like that, alone in his chair in an empty, forgotten house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few people said they'd be interested in the playlist for this fic, so here is a link to it on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5fGYiBFy3VGjyHzBPy3g8Y
> 
> (just as a heads up: it's a mix of songs to fit the vibe of the story as well as songs that I listen to while I write - for example, songs for action orientated scenes - so it's a pretty long playlist! I also have playlists for the next fic in this verse, a playlist for Allison in this series, and I'm planning one for the fic I write for Allison/Bucky/Natasha, so I might share those if there's interest)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: nightmares, canon-typical violence, blood, weapons, needles, a death that is heard rather than seen but is graphically implied, explosions, stabbing, description of wound.

The next two weeks are intense.

Stiles doesn’t leave the bunker at all, too busy training up Julia’s soldiers. It’s too much sometimes; feeding all of them is a pain in the ass and the bunker, while not tiny, feels constantly cramped and noisy. It itches under Stiles’s skin; between the snoring, the sensation of being caged in, and his nightmares, he’s barely sleeping and it’s starting to wear on him.

They watch footage of the Avengers fighting. Stiles takes them through it, going over each member’s style, their advantages and their weaknesses. He spends hours on the mat with Erin, Andrzej and their five recruits, training them, trying to prepare them to face off against someone like Natasha or Steve. 

A two week crash course isn’t going to be enough. _Stiles_ couldn’t win against any of the Avengers in hand to hand combat and he’d been sparring with them for months. But it’s the best he can do, training the soldiers up, building on the skills and strengths they already have, trying to help them learn to anticipate certain moves or tactics so they can deflect them. 

To give them credit, they’re quick learners and they’re incredibly capable. It helps Stiles as much as it helps them; the challenge pushes Stiles, helps him sharpen the skills that were starting to get a little rusty from disuse, teaches him new moves and tactics. He enjoys it, even if he has to fight the urge to break Jack’s nose whenever they spar. Gunner, however, is pretty chill and friendly and Stiles quickly grows to like him; they can hang out at night with a beer and a card game and it’s comfortable. 

Andrzej is quiet; friendly and cheerful, but a little shy. He’s nice to be around when Stiles needs silent companionship. Sometimes, they talk, conversing in Polish, and it’s a kind of comfort; it almost reminds him of when he visits his dad and it’s just the two of them so they can talk in their second language. It tugs up memories that are simultaneously painful and soothing. 

Apart from Julia, who is a constant grounding presence near his side, he gets along the best with Erin. She’s got a dry, slightly sassy kind of wit and humor and she’s perceptive; she can always tell when Stiles needs to be tactile, when he needs human contact and comfort, and when he wants his own space. She’s kind, too; whenever he wakes from a nightmare, she’s always ready with some chocolate and reassuring words. 

It’s after one of these nightmares that they end up sharing a watch, sitting by the computers with blankets over their shoulders and mugs of coffee in their hands; she still makes her coffee like bitter swill, but Stiles is kind of getting used to it. It’s not too bad if he dumps a load of sugar and cream into it.

She looks as exhausted and weary as Stiles feels; she’d had a nasty dream too. For a while, they sit in companionable silence, letting the last cruel teeth of their nightmares pull away.

“It was Steve,” Stiles murmurs eventually. “I dream about Chase a lot. And…and innocent people getting hurt. But most of the time, it’s the team. Their blood on my hands. Their bodies at my feet. And Steve. He always looks at me with such cold betrayal and anger and it kills me. He’s everything to me and I know that when this is over, I’ll see that expression on his face for real. I’ve lost him.”

Erin reaches out, gently squeezes Stiles’s wrist. “I’m sorry.” She leans back again and takes a sip of her coffee. “I met him once, you know.”

“Steve?”

She nods. “I saw him around the base a couple of times but I never really got chance to interact with him. My clearance level wasn’t high enough to be involved in his missions. But a few months before Hydra was revealed, one of my operations went wrong; my team and I were caught and things weren’t looking great. Captain Rogers lead the team that SHIELD sent to rescue us. He was…he’s something else, isn’t he?”

Stiles smiles slightly. “Yeah. He really is.”

“A force to be reckoned with. It was incredible. And then after, on the plane, he was so…so _kind_. I got a chance to talk to him, tell him about Jacob. He’s a huge Captain America fan. Has been ever since he was a tiny kid. For years, it was all Captain America bedsheets and action figures and themed parties. He’s twelve now and he still has a Captain America poster on his wall.” Erin looks down, pausing for a moment. “His dad died a few years ago. A car accident. For a very long time, it was so, so hard, for both of us. I told Captain Rogers about Jacob, what a huge fan he was and how that had helped when he was so full of grief and confusion over his dad’s death; he would talk about how strong and brave Captain America was and how he could be as well. Do you know what Steve did?”

Stiles shakes his head. 

“He came to Jacob’s birthday party.”

“That sounds like Steve,” Stiles says softly, fondness a tender, deep ache in his chest.

“You should have seen Jacob’s face. He cried a little and Captain Rogers never made fun of him. He was never condescending or anything. He just…hung out with him, ate cake and let Jacob hold his shield. Before he left, he told Jacob he was proud of him and his bravery. It meant the world to Jacob.” 

Stiles smiles, letting the steam from his coffee curl up and into his face, warming his cold skin. 

“Sometimes…” Erin pauses for a moment. “Sometimes I struggle. Because I remember that and I can’t help but think…this is the same man we’re trying to bring down? I know why we have to do it. I know we don’t have a choice. But targeting my own son’s biggest hero feels…it feels _wrong_.”

“You’re doing it for Jacob,” Stiles reminds her quietly. 

“Then why does it feel so…” she trails off and shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Stiles opens his mouth to reply, to try and offer some comfort or reassurance, but he stops when he spots Julia approaching them. Her gaze is on Erin but then she smiles warmly, cupping both of their necks as she stops next to them. Erin leans into Julia’s touch, relaxing, and Stiles closes his eyes.

“You look so tired,” Julia says softly. “Both of you. You should get some sleep.”

Stiles nods and finishes the rest of his coffee. He and Erin leave Julia to her turn at watch and slip into the sleeping quarters. Erin doesn’t speak as she climbs onto her own bunk, so Stiles doesn’t either.

Instead, he rolls onto his side, and he doesn’t sleep.

***

Soon, it’s time to implement the next stage of Julia’s plan. She goes over it all with them the night before, making sure they’re all prepared for their role and the circumstances, that they’re all clear on what to do if the whole thing goes sideways. Stiles still feels uneasy, both excited and terrified at the prospect of seeing Steve again _properly_. 

For once, he doesn’t have a nightmare when he sleeps; instead, his dreams are full of questions. He wonders how Steve will look at him, what the rest of the Avengers will do; whether they’ll try and bring him back or whether, after New Year’s Eve, they’ll try and take him down. 

He wakes feeling a little more rested, but not by much. He prepares breakfast for everyone and eats upstairs, sat in his armchair. He needs the brief pocket of peace and quiet to pull himself together ready for their mission. 

After clearing up, he takes a shower. He doesn’t shave off the scruff on his jaw but he does trim it a little, tidying it up. For once, he doesn’t bother with contact lenses or fake accessories and he leaves his hair in the messy, slightly fluffy style it dries in. He dresses in jeans, boots and a graphic _Hulk Smash!_ T-shirt under plaid. He tugs on his leather jacket and looks in the mirror, feels something almost like relief skid down his spine.

He looks like himself. For the first time in weeks, he can go outside without a disguise. He can just be _Stiles_.

He tucks a knife into each boot and a small, discreet device is stashed away, within reach in the pocket of his jacket. He can’t arm himself with a gun; a holster would be too obvious in these clothes. 

Julia hands him a comms unit and he tucks it in his pocket. She’s staying here, running the op from the bunker while monitoring footage on the computers. Andrzej isn’t needed for this task, either, so he’s staying behind too, but Erin will be positioned near the tower for surveillance. Stiles had been concerned about that, worried about the risks of Erin’s proximity to the Avengers building, but Julia had reassured both of them that it would all be fine. 

Stiles sits down on the couch and watches as Julia moves to the safe, opening it. She pulls out the case and unzips it, carefully lining up six vials on the table. She locks the remaining four away again. 

“Okay,” she says. “Stiles, you’re first.”

He nods and tries to relax as he watches her prepare the serum and get a needle ready. His stomach knots up when she approaches, sitting on the table in front of him. Her hand rubs gently at his lower thigh and she offers a small, reassuring smile.

“You’re strong. You’ll be okay. Just remember to try and relax and breathe through it. It’ll pass.” She squeezes his thigh gently. “Ready?” 

Stiles swallows. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, just. Go. Do it.”

Julia holds his leg in place and Andrzej moves to stand behind Stiles, clamping his hands down on his shoulders. Cold, tight anticipation slicks through Stiles, sticking in his lungs as he watches the needle sink into his thigh with a hot, sharp sting. Julia meets his gaze.

She pushes down the plunger.

At first, it’s cold, like ice seeping through him, crawling up his thigh. A second later, though, it _burns_ , searing hot, like fire chewing through his muscles and tendons. He feels his whole body clench, breath seizing in his lungs, because it _hurts_ , like he’s burning from the inside out, heat scorching his nerves, his blood bubbling and spitting in his veins. He’s being broiled inside his own flesh and he cries out through gritted teeth.

The rage is sudden and terrifying. It’s more than fury, it’s _power_ , brutal and all consuming, tearing through him and ripping him open until it’s all he can feel, all he can focus on. His back arches away from the couch, Andrzej shouting something as he struggles to hold Stiles back, and there’s a roaring in his ears, fire and cruelty and raw, vicious strength whipping like a hurricane inside of him.

“Stiles, Stiles, _Stiles_ ,” Julia chants, stroking at his thighs, at his belly, fingers ghosting over his ribs, fluttering as she tries to soothe him. “It’s okay. Breathe, just _breathe_ , darling. You’ll be okay. Don’t fight it. You need to let it happen.”

There’s a war raging inside of him and he _can’t_ breathe, lungs full of blood and fire and ruin; he can taste ash and copper in his throat and he digs his fingers into the couch, feels the material shred open. The fury inside him is ruthless; it wants to destroy him and he wants to destroy everything _else_ , feels the desperate, wild need to sink his teeth into the guts of the world and split it open. 

Julia’s voice is barely audible over the screaming in Stiles’s ears. Andrzej’s hands aren’t on him anymore; he couldn’t hold up to Stiles’s enhanced strength. 

He’s on the floor, cold concrete biting into his knees, and he shudders and shakes, trying to breathe, trying to focus. He thinks about Bucky and latches desperately onto his memories of the man, lets echoes of his voice bounce around inside his skull. He remembers what Bucky said about anger, about how easily it can consume, how it can also be a useful weapon.

_“Control it. That anger? That fire in your belly? You can use it. But you’ve gotta control it, not let it control you. Got it?”_

Stiles drags a harsh lungful of air in, holds it for a second before he exhales, slow and shaky. He concentrates, closes his eyes and stops fighting the fire; instead, he grasps it his hands, refuses to let it scorch him, and he wrestles it until it simmers down, sinks like embers into his heart instead. It heats the steel there, turns everything hot and raw with power; there’s smoke in his throat and ash on his tongue but now _he_ controls the supernova instead of the other way around.

He’s crouched on the floor, minute tremors still rippling through him as he gasps for breath. Slowly, he raises his head, lifts his gaze. Julia’s on the other side of the table, keeping a safe distance, and she stares at him with curiosity written across her face. 

Stiles looks at her and he wonders how her blood would taste between his teeth, imagines how easy it would be to rip her apart with his bare hands, but it’s distant now, a dangerous sizzle instead of a brutal explosion. He sharpens it, moulds the flames into something sharp and deadly, a weapon as lethal as the enhanced strength coursing through his veins.

“That,” he manages finally, a little hoarse, “was fucking horrible.”

Julia breathes out and reaches out, cupping his face. “Well done.”

Stiles gets to his feet. He doesn’t feel tired anymore; he feels full of fresh, sharp energy and it’s unnerving, the power he can feel coiled inside of him, ready to be let loose. He has no idea what he could do if he loses control so he keeps it leashed for now, tries to ignore the way it hisses and spits inside him. 

“Okay,” he says. “Who’s next?”

Everyone looks a little pale but, slowly, Conrad raises his hand, expression set into tense, determined lines. Stiles offers him a sharp grin and gestures to the couch. 

“I’m here,” he tells him as Julia prepares the next needle. “I’m gonna help you through it. But if you lose control, I’ve got a knife on me and I won’t hesitate to use it. Understood?”

Conrad nods once. “I can handle it.”

Stiles knows one of the reasons Julia picked them is because of their mental strength; they’ve got the control needed to wrestle that fire and rage into submission, just like Stiles did. 

Julia backs off and lets Stiles take over. With his enhanced strength, he’s the safest option now; the second Conrad starts writhing and shouting, Stiles is able to pin him in place, squeezing until he almost breaks bone with the effort of holding the bigger man still. It takes longer than it did with Stiles, but eventually, when the scorching heat starts to cool down on its own, Conrad is able to regain control. 

It’s easier after that, with both Stiles, Conrad and then Gunner to hold down each subject. Once the last injection is finished and Matt’s subdued his own internal hurricane, Stiles steps back. Julia offers him a large, pleased smile and rests her hand on the small of his back.

“We should test it,” she says.

He shakes his head. “Isn’t necessary.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can feel it,” he answers, meeting her gaze. “The strength.”

He wonders if this is what Steve and Bucky feel all the time; the raw, lethal power leashed in their bodies, coiled like a heated wire in their core. He wonders if this is what they have to control every single minute of the day, keeping it carefully in check unless the full, brutal force of it is needed.

It’s intoxicating. It’s horrifying. Stiles wants to keep it, wants to hold on to that strength and let it carve him apart to shape him into something new, something _better_. And he can’t wait until it drains out of him, until his blood doesn’t feel like it’s boiling in his veins and he can taste anything except copper on his tongue.

Julia looks at him for a moment, assessing, and then she nods slightly, trusting him with tender easiness. “Okay,” she says. “Good luck, Stiles.”

He brings her hand to his mouth, kissing her wrist before he lets go. He zips up his jacket and leaves the bunker, boots heavy on the stairs as he climbs them. 

He’s incredibly careful as he removes the board from the kitchen window, not willing to test his new strength just yet. He climbs out and boosts himself over the patio wall. He takes his usual route across roofs, fire escapes and alleyways, but he doesn’t stop when he’s a safe distance from the bunker; instead, he forges a difficult, convoluted path for what feels like miles. 

Eventually, he pauses in an alley, hands tucked in the pockets of his jacket. He takes a deep breath and then steps out, joining the foot traffic on the sidewalk, not bothering to disguise his posture or his gait as he walks. He’s not wearing a hat or a hood; his face is exposed, easily picked up on any cameras.

It feels strange after spending so long being cautious. To let himself be seen, no disguises, no clandestine tactics, it’s both liberating and unsettling, but he forces himself to relax as keeps walking until he reaches Central Park.

The weather is cold and grim, so there’s not a great deal of people in the park. A few dog walkers, runners and cyclists, but it’s mostly empty enough to limit potential civilian collateral damage. He heads north, finds a quieter spot, and sits down on a bench. He places the comms unit in his ear.

“I’m in position,” he says. “You got me?”

“I’ve got you,” Julia replies. “Cameras picked you up nicely. Good job, darling.”

Stiles relaxes, smiling slightly at the praise. “Our soldiers ready?”

He’s on a private link with Julia, eliminating any distractions but ensuring she still has a connection to him. Their five juiced-up soldiers are on a different line to her so she can direct and instruct them.

“Conrad just checked in,” she replies. “And in three…two…one…” The line goes silent as she switches links, giving the order to Conrad and the others. When she comes back, there’s a relieved note in her voice. “Our boys are doing their thing in Times Square.” 

Stiles exhales, relieved that, so far, things are going smoothly. This is the easy bit compared to the rest of his task, but hopefully, it’s a good sign that they’ll pull this off without a hitch. 

Conrad’s team is tasked to cause chaos and mayhem in Times Square, showing off their strength and skills without harming civilians. Property destruction, a little bit of fire, some general showboating is all definitely allowed, but Julia had been clear that they’re not to hurt anyone innocent. Any superheroes that show up, however, or SHIELD agents…well, they’re fair game.

Stiles leans back into the bench, tips his head back slightly. 

And then he waits.

The bench is cold, seeping through his jeans, and he’s not really bundled up enough to ward off the crisp chill in the air. It’s not raining, at least, but thick, grey clouds hang overhead, blocking any sunlight that tries to slant through the bleak barrier. Stiles shivers, digging his hands deeper into his pockets to protect his fingers from the sharp breeze.   
He knows enough about the team to make predictions in their behaviour, but right now, he can’t be sure on who exactly will show up to face him. They’ll be fully aware of Stiles’s ability to anticipate their game plan so there’s a strong chance they’ll switch it up a little to strip him of that particular advantage. 

He knows for certain that Steve will show up. He suspects that he’ll send Bucky, Thor and Natasha to contain the chaos in Times Square; all three of them are strong and skilled enough to go hand to hand with the enhanced men. Natasha might not have the serum or god-like powers, but she’s fast and almost unequalled in hand to hand combat, enough to handle someone a hell of a lot stronger than her. He’s unsure where Tony will be sent to; Steve will be well aware that the men are being controlled by Julia, so he won’t want to hurt them, will try and bring them in with limited violence. So he might keep Tony, more of a heavy aerial support and hard hitter, away from Times Square and bring him in to help talk Stiles down instead.

Or Steve could do the complete opposite, turn all of Stiles’s expectations on their head just to keep him off his game, and the thought is unsettling. Stiles doesn’t like not being confident in how things will play out, especially with how delicate this mission is. If they fail, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to finish Julia’s plan.

It takes less than ten minutes.

He sees Steve first; he’s not wearing his uniform, clearly trying to avoid drawing attention from the public. He hasn’t got his shield, either, but Stiles knows Steve’s body and smarts are just as lethal a weapon as the shield. 

He approaches Stiles slowly, almost cautiously, like he’s trying to get close to a spooked animal, like he thinks Stiles will bolt at any second. Stiles just stays on the bench and watches him, heart pounding in his chest. When Steve stops, just a few feet away and facing Stiles, unease slices down Stiles’s spine.

It hurts to see him. It’s been so long since he saw Steve this close and Stiles’s heart _aches_. He wants to reach out, wants to touch Steve, wants to explain and apologize and make everything okay, but he can’t. 

He can see the tension in Steve’s shoulders, the way he’s trying to avoid looking too imposing, clearly taking the gentle, civil approach; he wants to try and talk Stiles down before resorting to more forceful tactics. He looks tired, jaw tense, and his eyes are so _blue_. 

Stiles swallows, offers a quiet, “Hi, Steve.”

Steve jerks forward, taking two quick steps before he pulls to a stop again, clearly unwilling to let his guard down. “ _Stiles_ ,” he breathes. 

“I’m sorry for the whole shooting you in the head thing.”

“Four times,” Tony’s voice reaches them from behind Stiles. 

Stiles winces slightly. “Right. Four times. I’m sorry, Steve.”

Tony appears in Stiles’s line of vision. He sits next to him on the bench, settling in a lazy, comfortable slouch, legs parted. He’s dressed casually, but Stiles catches the gleam of metal on his wrist; he’s wearing his watch gauntlet, though it isn’t activated. Yet. 

“So,” he says. “Where’s my apology? I mean, I’m a little hurt, Bambi. You hurt JARVIS’s feelings. You used my own device against me and I gotta tell you, that’s pretty offensive.”

“I _am_ sorry,” Stiles replies quietly, honestly. Guilt is a raw, bleeding wound behind his ribs. “I really am. I…I wish it didn’t have to come to that. I don’t want to hurt you. Any of you.”

“But it’s for the greater good, right?” Tony drawls, then gestures to his own ear as he asks, “She talking to you?”

“Not right now.”

“Uh huh. So, what’s the game plan? Distract us while some extreme steroid junkies tear up Times Square? Yeah, no, I don’t think so. Julia’s smart, isn’t she? Smart enough to dangle your pretty face out like bait for Rogers.”

“You know I can’t tell you her plan, Tony,” Stiles says softly. He keeps Steve in view but doesn’t take his attention off of Tony. He’s sure they have back up, probably staying at a distance, ready to make a move if Stiles tries to get away.

“Stiles,” Steve says, taking another step forward. “I know…I know it hurts when you fight her. But we need you to try. _I_ need you to try.” Those blue eyes are so intense, focused entirely on Stiles. “You need to come with us.”

Stiles shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Steve, but I can’t.”

“Yeah, you…kinda don’t really have much of a choice, Bambi,” Tony replies lightly. “I’m not gonna have Cap here sulking around my tower again. Time to come home.” 

His hand darts out, reaching for the comms unit in Stiles’s ear, and Stiles lurches to his feet, away from Tony. 

“Stiles,” Julia’s voice rings in his ear. “The rest of the team are in Times Square. Our boys won’t hold up for long.”

The plan had worked; all of the Avengers, sans Bruce, are out of the tower, split between dealing with the chaos in Times Square and confronting Stiles. He knows that they’re fully aware it’s part of Julia’s plan; they’re ready for the trap, confident in their ability to thwart it and bring Stiles in. But Stiles had expected that and Julia had planned for it. 

As if on cue, Tony goes tense, tipping his head slightly; there’s a device in his ear, his connection to JARVIS without the suit, and the AI’s giving him the alert. Tony meets his gaze, but when he speaks, his words are directed at Steve.

“Cap, the SI evacuation protocol has just been tripped.”

Julia had pulled it off, then, ensuring to evacuate all of the staff and employees in the tower. Stiles watches as Tony gets to his feet, hand landing heavily on Stiles’s shoulder. Steve starts to move closer, discreetly boxing Stiles in. 

“Okay, you got us away from the tower. I expected that.” Tony says, his other hand tucked casually in the pocket of his jeans. “But it’s not gonna work. JARVIS did a sweep, we found all of your bugs in the tower.” 

“I knew you would,” Stiles replies, soft and apologetic. His mouth tastes sour, chest and head throbbing with fire and regret. 

Because he knows Tony, knows JARVIS and the Avengers. He’d had plenty of time to find the ideal weapon; small and discreet enough to hide in various places and undetectable to JARVIS’s systems. They were based off one of Tony’s own designs and he knows that any chance he might have of forgiveness from the older man is about to be completely shred apart.

“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I wish…I wish things were different. But I have to get you to stop.”

Tony and Steve move simultaneously, grabbing for Stiles, but they’re a split second too late; Stiles’s hand closes around the device in his pocket, thumb pressing down on the surface. It’s cool against his skin, registering his thumb print, and he hears a quiet, electronic whine as he hits the ground, Steve’s arms closing around him in a tight lock. 

In the distance, a muted _boom_ punches through the air.

Steve jerks back slightly without letting go. Stiles cranes his neck, stares in the direction of the Avengers tower; it’s visible from the park, spearing into the sky, and chunks of rubble and glass is still spitting down from the top floors, fire searing bright against the dark clouds. It quickly engulfs the top of the building, smoke spewing out in a column into the sky, tugged and twisted by the wind. 

The SI floors weren’t targeted, but Julia had ensured to evacuate all of the employees so no one would get hurt. It’s the Avengers floors that have been rocked by brutal blasts; he’d slipped a device into every single room and suite used by the team. They’re destroyed and for a second, there’s pure silence from Steve and Tony as they stare at the tower.

“Son of a bitch,” Tony says, voice so, so quiet.

A blur of green launches out of the building; even from this distance, they can hear the roar, muted and snatched towards them by the wind. They can’t see where the Hulk lands but Steve releases Stiles, hand going to his ear as he barks out commands to the rest of the team, letting them know that they have a Hulk situation.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” Tony repeats, snapping the words between his teeth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Erin’s voice rings out from the comms in Stiles’s ear; the first time she’s spoken from her position. “Julia, I think he’s spotted me.”

Sharp fear slashes through Stiles’s chest. He’d been unsure when Julia asked Erin to watch the tower from the roof of the building right opposite it; it felt too close, too risky, not just from the proximity to the explosions but also with how close she would be to the Hulk.

He’s vaguely aware of being hauled up to his feet, Steve’s hands iron bands around his wrists, keeping them behind Stiles’s back. They’re not trying to talk him down anymore; they need to wrap this up _now_ , need to bring Stiles in using any means necessary so they can rush to contain the Hulk as soon as possible. 

There’s a scream, long and raw and _awful_ ; a loud, chilling snarl, the crash of rubble, and Erin’s scream cuts off, tangles itself into a wet, choked sound. She coughs once, twice, almost sobs, and there’s another sickening _thud_. She goes silent.

Stiles’s knees go weak. His body sags, held up only by Steve’s relentless grip. 

“Erin.” It’s his own voice but he barely recognizes it, faint and shocked and full of grief. “Oh god. _Erin_.”

“Stiles,” Julia says. “ _Stiles_ , I need you to focus.”

Warm fingers brush Stiles’s ear and he flinches, but it’s Steve, removing the comms unit. He crushes it in his fist, drops the remains to the ground, and he’s talking, low and frantic, and Stiles realizes a second later that Steve is talking _Tony_ down.

“- this is what she wants,” he’s saying, quick and urgent. “Tony, _stand down_.” 

Tony’s activated his watch gauntlet. It’s held up, steady, but he looks pale and tense with anger, eyes burning as they focus on Stiles. Steve shifts until Stiles is behind him, shielding him with his own body, but he doesn’t release his grip on Stiles’s arm.

“He tried to kill Bruce,” Tony snaps, his words splitting the air like a whip. “ _Pepper could have been in there_.”

“Tony,” Steve barks. “Please. We don’t have time.”

“We’ve tried it your way, Rogers. I’m bringing him in. Move.”

Stiles holds still, tense, urgency a hot tangle in his gut. At any moment, the Avengers will finish in Times Square; most of them will go straight to containing the Hulk, but Stiles can’t take the risk of back up arriving here. But his job isn’t done yet.

When Steve doesn’t move, Tony spits out a curse and the gauntlet whines quietly as the repulsor sparks up; the shot he fires off isn’t to kill, but from this range, it still has the potential to do some pretty painful, if non-lethal, damage. Steve moves quickly, pulling Stiles aside, and then he launches forward, grabbing Tony’s arm. They grapple for a moment, Steve trying to get Tony to back down while the other man struggles, repulsor charging again.

_Now_. The word ripples through Stiles’s head and the roaring fury in his veins burns even hotter, stuffs his lungs full until he feels like it’s suffocating him.

He reaches out, grabs Tony’s gauntleted arm, and squeezes. The metal screeches as it bends and crumples, forced inwards. There’s a pained hiss between Tony’s hiss, Steve’s hand on Stiles’s shoulder, trying to snatch him back, and a second later, heat stings Stiles’s thigh.

He releases Tony and looks down at the arrow dart in his thigh. He turns slightly, scans the trees, but he can’t see Clint. The sedative is cool for a second, a strange, uncomfortable pool of ice in Stiles’s leg, and he staggers back, a sluggish haze struggling against the brutal force of the serum. 

Klapow had adjusted the formula, made changes to make it resistant to things like dendrotoxin. It works, too; it takes less than three seconds for the serum to win the battle, burning out the sedative. 

Stiles bares his teeth and looks at Steve’s hand on his shoulder. He grabs his wrist and _throws_ , rage a supernova inside him, and he doesn’t hold back at all; Steve goes flying, hits the ground hard enough to chew up grass and dirt, and the crack and snap of broken bones is audible. 

Tony’s gauntlet is busted but he still goes toe to toe with Stiles, landing a hard blow to Stiles’s ribs. The pain barely registers, lost in the haze of anger and raw power. Another arrow dart bites into Stiles’s leg and he snatches it out, tosses it aside. 

His knee slams into Tony’s gut, forcing him to double over; Stiles lands a clean haymaker to his jaw and there’s a nasty _crack_. Tony spits out blood, staggers back, but he’s not giving up. Behind him, Stiles can see the flash of red and gold in the sky; JARVIS has sent a full suit of armor. It hits Tony, moulding around him, and in seconds he’s stood upright, safely encased in metal. 

He brings both hands up, repulsors whining to life.

“Tony,” Steve grits out, back on his feet, blood and grass clinging to his clothes and skin. “ _Don’t_. It’s not him. This is what she wants. Tony!” When the helmet tips towards Steve, the blond takes a step forwards. “Think about it. He _knew_. He knew Bruce would survive and Hulk out. He knew Pepper wasn’t in the tower. He made sure all of your employees evacuated. This was the _plan_.”

He’s standing between them again, protecting Stiles from Tony, hands lifted as he prepares to fight if he has to. But the words seem to register and slowly, the repulsors power down again. 

Some of the tension in Steve’s shoulders ease. “Go. The others will need your help with the Hulk.”

Bright, cold eyes settle on Stiles for a brief moment before Tony lifts into the air, shooting off into the sky to try and stop the Hulk’s rampage before he can inflict too much damage. 

Behind Stiles, Clint is sprinting towards them, bow in his hand. Stiles shifts to the side so he can keep him and Steve in his line of vision. Clint stops, bow still held at his side, but tension is coiled like a spring through his body, ready to fight. 

“You’ve been juicing, kid,” he says. “That’s cheating.”

Stiles swallows. “Fight dirty, fight viciously -.”

“Fuck the other guy up with extreme prejudice.”

Allison’s voice is quiet and it sends a ripple of surprise and regret through Stiles. His head is throbbing, crackling with fire, and he feels a shudder wrack through him as he turns to look at her.

She’s stood a few feet away, bow in her hands, an arrow already nocked. She keeps her body straight and taut, holding the draw with practised ease that displays her strength and control.

She’s wearing slim black cargo pants tucked into boots, with an ICER holstered on her right thigh and two knives strapped to her left. Despite the cold weather, she’s not wearing a jacket; instead, she has a sleeveless black vest zipped up over her tank top; the material is slightly rigid, suggesting thin Kevlar panels are sewn into the fabric. Her hair is cut a little shorter, curling just above her collarbones, and she’s wearing new archery gloves with a series of thin straps that go up to her elbows. 

She stares at him, drinks in the sight of him, and her expression splits open for a second, lets him see all of her concern and hurt.

“Hawkeye, Artemis,” Steve says, voice is a little breathless, tight with pain. “You got this?”

Clint nods once. “Go, Cap. They’ll need your help with the big guy.”

Steve’s gaze cuts to Stiles for a moment and the look on his face is open and raw. He opens his mouth but closes it again a second later. There’s none of that betrayal in his blue eyes that Stiles is expecting; he looks angry and exhausted and pained, but a moment later, focus snaps into place. Captain America takes off in a run, out of sight in a matter of seconds. 

“Gotta tell you, kid,” Clint says. “You are way more of a pain in the ass than I expected.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles murmurs. “I never…I never wanted it to come to this. I don’t like hurting you. But I _have_ to. You don’t understand. This is all for the greater good; we’re _helping_ people.”

Clint snorts. “That’s some real fucked up bullshit she’s selling you, buddy. So. Are you gonna come quietly or do I get to pay you back for my broken nose?” 

Stiles shakes his head. “Don’t make me fight you. I’m stronger than you right now.”

Clint flicks his arm and his bow folds down; he tucks it into its strap on his back. He removes his gun from the holster at his waist and it isn’t an ICER. Stiles turns to face him properly as the other man aims.

“I don’t think you’re strong enough to stop bullets,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to have to shoot you, Stiles, but if I have to, if it’s the only way to stop you from hurting more people…I will.”

Stiles takes a step forward, watches Clint’s finger shift on the trigger. “Then do it. Shoot me.”

“Clint,” Allison snaps. “Don’t.”

“Go on. Pull the trigger. Shoot me. _Shoot me_.” 

Allison shifts until she’s closer to Stiles. “Clint!”

“ _SHOOT ME_.”

Allison’s arrow sinks into the dirt next to Clint’s feet. He jerks back, lowers the gun slightly, and she lets go of her bow in favor of grabbing her ICER, shooting Stiles point blank in the chest.

Stiles staggers back a step. The strength serum is working furiously, trying to battle the dendrotoxin, but on top of the sedatives Clint had fired into him, he’s starting to feel that strength be worn down. Another couple of shots might actually knock him out.

He grabs Allison’s wrist and twists, forcing it to the side; his finger closes over hers on the trigger and pulls, and Clint crumples, out cold. 

Allison flips into Stiles’s hold, freeing her wrist, and snaps a jumping back kick to his sternum that knocks him back. She follows, kicking his knee, forcing him down before she drives her own knee forward towards his face. Stiles rolls to the side and pops back up on his feet, blocking the elbow she aims at his jaw.

“So, Artemis, huh?” he says, ribs aching from a punch she lands to his ribs. “You got your own codename.”

She blocks his punch with her forearm, wincing at his strength. “Yeah. I chose it. There’s a pool going on your codename. Hunter’s fond of ‘Reaper’.” She flips back, avoiding his roundhouse. “Lowell likes ‘Dickface’. You can pick one when you get back.”

She curls her legs around his waist and throws herself back, twisting into a tight corkscrew that brings Stiles to the ground. She pins him. Stiles doesn’t struggle; he’s pulling his strength with her. He doesn’t want to _hurt_ Allison. The thought is unbearable. 

“Allison,” he says softly. “You and I both know I can’t return to SHIELD after this.”

She rests her palm gently on his throat. “Find out for yourself,” she replies. She looks tired, dark smudges under her eyes, and the anger on his face fades to a beseeching expression. “Come with me, Stiles. Please.”

“You know I can’t.”

She presses down. “I won’t let you do this, Stiles. I can’t let you hurt people and I _won’t_ see you destroy yourself.”

“Don’t make me hurt you, Allison.”

She snatches up her ICER from the ground near his head, ready to fire more shots to knock him out. But Stiles is already moving, surging up and taking her with him until they’re both back on their feet, the gun hitting the grass again. 

His hand goes to her thigh, slides one of the knives free, and he pulls her in close, sinking the blade into her stomach.

A wet, surprised sound chokes near his ear. “ _Stiles_.”

He steps back and the knife tugs free again, pulling out of her body as she grunts in pain. Blood spills from the wound, turns her hands red as they fold over her stomach and she staggers back, shocked. 

Stiles’s own hands are trembling. Her blood is hot and slick on his skin and he drops the knife, horror and regret and fury raging ruthlessly inside of him. He manages to catch her as her knees give out, lowering her carefully to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. I told you I didn’t want to hurt you. But you need to stop. All of you need to stop fighting this.” He leans down, presses his forehead against hers. “Oh god. I’m so sorry.”

“Stiles,” she whispers. She’s pale, eyes a little glazed over, and he pushes down on her hands, encouraging her to put pressure on her wound. “ _Please_.”

“I’m sorry.”

He pulls away from her, gets to his feet. He’s shaking so hard he can barely see, feels cold and torn open. He can hardly breathe; the pain in his head is a searing, cruel agony burning inside his skull, and even Klapow’s serum can’t combat it; he wants to scream, wants to puke and cry and shake apart until he’s just ash on the ground.

Allison stares at the sky. Her skin is slightly grey now, dark eyes unfocused; there’s a comms unit in her ear and Stiles desperately prays that someone is on their way, that this won’t be the last time he ever sees her. 

“I’m sorry,” he manages again. 

Her gaze flickers to him. She blinks once, twice, tries to say something, and Stiles stumbles back, looks away because he can’t bear to see her like this. Turning his back feels wrong, has everything inside him screaming because he can’t leave her, he can’t just let her die, but he hasn’t got a choice; his legs are already moving, uncaring of the agony in his head and the misery howling inside him. The hot wetness of Allison’s blood on his hands is the worst thing he’s ever felt.

He runs.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings in this chapter for: blood.

He doesn’t know how he gets back to the safehouse.

His body is on automatic, running and jumping and twisting, taking him safely back to the bunker without being detected. His muscles ache from the exertion, his breath rasps in his lungs, but he can’t remember any of the journey; Julia’s compulsion had taken over, his body moving, beyond his own control, just as it had all the times he’d betrayed the Avengers and not even known it; just as it had when he slid the knife into Allison’s stomach.

He blinks and he’s inside the galley kitchen. He feels his knees give out; his back hits the counter, chipped surface scraping his skin as he slides down until he’s sat on the floor. The cold quickly creeps over him and he can smell the dusty, damp stink of the house, but all he can taste is copper on his tongue. 

He lifts trembling hands in front of him. Blood coats his skin and stains his clothes with vibrant red. 

Allison’s blood.

A sob claws its way free from his throat. He feels like he’s being torn apart; he can still feel the burn of the strength serum, fury and power a hurricane inside him, but it’s fighting now, snarling and biting at the horror and guilt and misery that’s building inside him, swallowing him whole, and it feels like there’s a war in his heart, searing through his veins and splitting open his flesh. He can’t take it, can’t make it stop, and he grips at his hair, feels the dampness of blood against his scalp as it smears from the trembling, desperate fingers he drags over his head.

Gentle, warm fingers curl around Stiles’s wrists. “Stiles. Stiles, look at me. _Look at me_.”

He pries his eyelids open. Tears sting his eyes and blur his vision, but he knows its Julia, can tell from the way coolness slithers around the base of his skull, tries to break through the haze that’s suffocating him. 

“Oh, darling,” she whispers, pulling him into a hug.

“I stabbed her,” he chokes out. 

“You had to. You had no choice.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” he seethes and he lashes out, pushes her back. He scrabbles back even as the counter digs into his spine; there’s nowhere for him to go. “I was stronger than her. I could have taken her down or used the ICER. She wasn’t going to kill me. But I _stabbed_ her.”

“Stiles,” her thrall slides through her voice, deepens it slightly. “You had no choice.”

“ _Yes I did_!”

She jerks back, a sharp, surprised sound whistling between her teeth. For a moment, they both go still, silence hanging heavily between them, and then she leans forward, fingers settling on his jaw. She forces him to look at her.

“Darling, you had to do it. Sacrifices have to be made. You know this.” 

“And Erin?” he shouts the words, hears them echo through the empty house. “Was she just another sacrifice?”

“Her death was an accident, Stiles, and it hurts. She was one of mine. I never wanted that to happen.”

“I told you she was too close to the tower. I _told_ you putting her in that position was dangerous. But you did it anyway and now she’s _dead_!” Stiles stops, sucks in a lungful of air. “Fuck, it was deliberate, wasn’t it? That night…that night we were talking. She was having doubts. You knew she was having doubts. So you got rid of her.”

Her eyes widen. “Stiles, _no_. I would never -.”

“But you would! You sacrificed Chase. You conveniently sacrificed Erin after she said she felt like all of this was wrong. We’re just pawns to you, aren’t we? Am I next, huh? Are you gonna tell me to jump in front of a train or let someone rip my heart out?”

“ _Never_ ,” she snaps. “Never, Stiles. I told you, I want you to stay with me. I would _never_ let you die.”

“Even if it was for the greater good?”

Her teeth click shut. His words linger in the air between them, loaded and cruel, and Stiles laughs, the sound bitter, hollow. She reaches out, grabs his wrist, and the anger that tears through his ribcage is like nothing he’s ever felt before; he yanks his arm back and lifts his lip, bares his teeth at her. 

He can feel that coolness in his skull sinking deeper into his mind, trying to dig through the haze of Stiles’s fury, and he turns the blaze of his rage onto it, tries to burn it out.  
Julia grabs him again, hands on his chest, his arms, his face, and she’s talking quickly, urgently, but he can’t hear it over the roaring in his ears.

It hurts, oh _god_ , it hurts, the agony of fighting that control so much worse than it’s ever been before. He can’t breathe, can’t even move; his body seizes and he hears himself screaming as the war inside of him tears through bone and muscle and skin, his mind and soul a vicious, bloody battleground. 

There’s blood dripping down his face, hot and wet, slipping the taste of copper between his lips. Julia holds onto him and he can feel more hands grabbing at him – Kowalski – and he’s falling, tipping until his skull cracks against the floor.

The supernova inside his head builds and builds, searing the back of his eyelids, spilling destruction through his veins, and he can feel it, can feel how close it is to exploding -.

Everything goes dark.

***

He wakes up feeling like death.

The fire and rage is gone; instead, he feels hollow and empty, and colder than he’s ever been in his life. Everything aches, his muscles sore and weak, skin clammy like he’s gone through the fever from hell. 

His throat is raw and dry, stinging when he tries to swallow. His head pounds, electric pain crackling inside his skull; cool fingers stroke along his brow, tender and soothing and he sighs, leaning into the touch.

“Stiles? Are you with me?”

Stiles tries to open his eyes but can’t; his head feels fuzzy and uncomfortable at just the thought. 

“Stiles,” Julia murmurs again. Her voice is so soft, so kind, even as her power simmers beneath it. “I need you to lift your left hand for me. Can you do that?”

Stiles isn’t aware of moving. He doesn’t feel like he _can_ ; his body feels so heavy, beyond his own control right now. But fingers find his and squeeze and he realizes his left hand is in the air, even if he can’t really feel it. 

Of course. His body is beyond _his_ control, but not beyond Julia’s.

She gives a quiet sigh of relief and the hand on his forehead shifts, sliding down to settle at the back of his neck. Her fingers press gently at the base of his skull.

“Can you feel me?” 

He can. Beneath the pounding in his head, twisted between the throb of pain and his hazy confusion, he can feel Julia, cool and soothing, intimately entwined with his mind.

“Yes,” he manages. His voice is hoarse, barely a croak, and talking hurts.

“Ssh,” she murmurs. “Don’t talk. Just rest. I won’t let it hurt anymore. I promise.”

Stiles twitches slightly, a groan rattling in his throat. He can’t get the words out; the darkness is pulling at him, trying to tug him back under. He feels sluggish and lost inside the void that’s eaten away everything inside the fragile skin and aching bones of his body. But Julia seems to understand him because she tucks in against his side, keeps her fingers around his and squeezes gently.

“I won’t let you dream,” she promises. “You’re not beyond my grasp anymore, Stiles. Never again. I’m here.”

His fingers twitch against hers and she presses a gentle, affectionate kiss to his jaw. She starts talking, voice low and sweet, and he allows himself to tumble back into the darkness.

The next time he wakes up, he feels more alert, less hazy and confused. His body still aches and the cold seems to have taken up residence inside him, dull and ruthless. His head isn’t buzzing anymore but he feels exhausted, like he’s suffering the aftermath of the worst migraine of his life. 

He’s on the couch in the bunker, a pillow under his head and a pile of blankets tucked over him. They do nothing to ease the frost on his skin. He feels like they’re suffocating him, pinning his already heavy body down, but he doesn’t feel strong enough to struggle. Instead, he just rolls his head to the side, eyes dry and crusty from too much sleep.  
Julia’s sat on the floor next to the couch, a book in her lap, but her hand is still clasped tightly around Stiles’s.

“Julia?” he croaks.

She twists to look at him and clear relief slides into her gaze. She offers a small smile. “Hey, sleepyhead. How do you feel?”

“Like hell.”

She nods and shifts so she’s on her knees, drifting her fingers through his hair. “You’ve been in and out for nearly four days.”

“What?” he struggles to sit up but his body doesn’t cooperate; he sags back down into the couch, a grunt squeezing between his clenched teeth at the dull throb that pulses through his body. “Okay, fuck. Ow.”

“You need to rest,” she reprimands him. “I thought…I was so scared, Stiles. You just crumpled, started seizing. I couldn’t take you to a hospital. We have barely any medical supplies here and I wouldn’t know what to do anyway. And then when you finally stopped, you just wouldn’t wake up. When you did, you were so…lost.” She swallows, shakes her head slightly. “It was nearly impossible to get you to wake up enough to drink and eat something. I thought…I thought you’d gone too far, gone somewhere I can’t find you.”

Stiles manages a sluggish blink. He’d woken up a few times for food and water? He doesn’t remember it; he can recall the park, can remember the sensation of blood on his hands, he remembers the agony in his head in the kitchen, remembers being so sure he was about to be torn apart. Everything after that is a confusing blur, most of it lost to the darkness.

“What happened?” 

“You lost control, let the rage consume you,” she replies softly. “I couldn’t reach you. You kept pushing me away; I lost my grasp on your mind. It was horrible. I couldn’t do anything to help you, Stiles. You were fighting and it was causing you so much pain, I’ve never seen anything like it. There was so much blood. I thought you were dying. I didn’t know the serum would affect my control like that. I didn’t…I didn’t realize how strong you are, how hard you could fight if you were cornered and angry. I should have been more prepared. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he mumbles. “I was fighting you, your control. I shouldn’t have.”

“You were upset. About Erin, about Allison, of course you were struggling. Don’t blame yourself, darling. It’s okay.” Julia drifts her thumb over his eyebrow, offering him a reassuring smile. “The last few days have been rough. Klapow said the comedown from the serum would be unpleasant, but I didn’t realize how bad it would be. You were already hurting and fragile from trying to throw off my thrall and that didn’t seem to mix well with the effects of the comedown. It’s like your body’s been in a battle for days now, fighting off both reactions. You must be so exhausted.”

“Yeah. I hurt. And I feel…I’m so cold.”

“I’m sure that will pass,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. I can reach your mind again, Stiles. You’re back with me. You’ll be okay.”

Stiles closes his eyes, focusing on the gentle sweep of her thumb against his skin. He still feels so empty, so hollow, a vast emptiness howling behind his ribs. He thinks about Erin, thinks about Allison, and he should _feel_ something, should feel horror and grief and guilt, but instead there’s just that numb, all-consuming _nothing_.

“What did you do?” he asks.

Julia’s hand presses down on his chest, over his heart. “You were suffering,” she replies. “You feel so _much_ , Stiles. You love so deeply. I admire that; it’s so beautiful. But it was going to destroy you. So I made you bury it.” 

“Oh.”

“Are you upset?”

“No.” He wonders if he _can_ feel upset anymore or if this is all he is now: a shell. She’s finished carving him out, finished stuffing herself inside him. 

“Good. I care about you, Stiles. I hate to see you so full of hurt.” Julia tucks the blankets in tighter around him. “I meant what I said, darling. You’re not just a pawn to me. I won’t just dispose of you. When this is done, when it’s all over, I want you to stay with me.”

“I will,” he promises. “Always.” 

She smiles. “I know. Get some rest, okay?” 

He doesn’t want to succumb to the darkness again; he wants to find out what’s happened while he’s been out of it, wants to know what the next step in her plan is. But he already feels sleep sucking at him, mind sinking down in a sluggish spiral, and he drifts again.

***

It takes almost a day for him to feel up to sitting upright on the couch.

Julia keeps the blankets tucked around him, wrapped securely up to his chin, though it doesn’t do much. He feels like he’s buried in ice. He’s so weak, hands shaking as he tries to hold a mug of hot chocolate, and Julia has to help steady it, tipping it gently to his mouth so he can drink.

“What happened?” he asks. His tongue still feels too heavy in his mouth. “After I left the park?”

“The Avengers managed to talk down the Hulk,” she replies. “Pretty quickly, actually. I didn’t realize Dr Banner had so much control.”

“How many people…?” he trails off.

“Only Erin…didn’t survive,” Julia replies carefully. “Despite the circumstances, Dr Banner seemed to hold on to enough control to avoid killing any civilians.”

Stiles nods slightly. Erin had been too close. Positioned on the top of the building opposite the tower, dressed for combat, with binoculars, focused on the Avengers HQ? Of course the Hulk saw her and knew she was involved in the explosion. He’d have smashed her into paste. 

“Mostly, he did some property damage,” Julia continues. “A few people were hurt. The Avengers subdued him before he could do much worse.” She purses her lips slightly. “It wasn’t as…catastrophic as I’d anticipated.”

“But it’s enough that he lost control. It’s enough that he killed someone and did some damage.”

She nods. “Oh, absolutely.” 

“And the documents on the formula?”

“That all worked out perfectly,” she replies with a smile. “It hit the news shortly after the explosion.”

Stiles nods. All of Bruce’s research on Klapow’s serum, all of his adjustments, the photo Stiles had taken of the board with Bruce’s finished formula, all of it had been leaked to Julia’s contacts within the press, ensuring it would hit all of the major news networks. 

Turning people against the Hulk was the first part of the plan; the explosion had worked, causing Bruce’s control to lapse just enough to go all mean and green. Killing someone and destroying property is enough to twist perception against him, especially as people had already been wary after the gala.

The second part of the plan was to turn people against Bruce himself. Bringing up his history, the fact that the Hulk was a result of his experimentation, and now he’s been messing around with replica serums again, improving the formula for the strength serum that was used by the same men who caused a hell of a lot of chaos, destruction and panic in Times Square.

“More and more people are turning against him,” Julia says. “People are calling for him to be controlled. It’s being debated right now; regardless of the Avengers’ status and Tony Stark’s pull, there’s a hell of a lot of pressure for Dr Banner to be locked up until he can be deemed completely safe.”

Stiles blows out a breath. “It worked, then.”

“Stark is trying to mitigate it, but with the tower destroyed…” Julia shrugs slightly. “The fact that someone was able to set up explosions _inside_ the most secure floors of the building is calling him and the Avengers into question again. The New York division of SI is displaced now until the building is repaired, so he has to handle that, and the Avengers have been split up and scattered. They no longer reside in the same place.”

“Which makes it easier to divide and target them,” Stiles murmurs.

She nods. “And then there’s you.”

Stiles finishes his drink and she places the empty mug on the coffee table. His choice of location and complete lack of disguise had been deliberate. The park had been quiet enough to reduce the potential of civilian collateral damage, but a popular enough location to ensure that they would be noticed.

Julia grabs a tablet and turns it to show him the screen, displaying the front page of a major news website. Taking up most of it is a picture of Captain America and Tony Stark coming to blows. Two of the Avengers have been caught fighting, Steve willingly going toe to toe with Tony in order to protect Stiles. That alone will divide the public’s opinions and turn people against the team; how can they be depended on to protect people when they so easily turn on each other?

“You were recognized,” Julia says. 

He nods. They’d expected that; planned it, even. He’d been unsure, nervous at the prospect of going against the Avengers publicly, knowing that people will see him as a villain. It won’t just be SHIELD coming for him now, but other organizations. It makes everything so much riskier.

“Steve spoke to the press,” she adds gently. “He’s explained the situation. About me, about my gift. He’s trying to protect you, trying to make sure people know that you’re innocent in all of this.”

Stiles shakes his head slightly. “He’s too stubborn.” Even now, after everything, Steve is still trying to keep Stiles safe.

He’d expected it, of course. Steve had done the same for Bucky, no matter how long it took or how difficult it was. He’d made sure the whole world knew that none of his actions were Bucky’s fault, that he was a victim rather than a threat. 

“Good,” Julia says. “The fact that he’s defending you despite the things you’ve done is turning opinion against him. People don’t agree with him letting his personal feelings stop him from doing whatever it takes to bring you down. And the fact that they were aware of the situation, of the mind control, but hadn’t told the authorities doesn’t help. Lots of speculation going around that any one of the team could be under my compulsion as well. Basically,” she offers him a satisfied smile, “it’s a shitstorm against the Avengers right now and SHIELD are getting sunk along with them. We’re winning, Stiles.”

“It’s almost over,” he murmurs.

She nods, reaching out to take his hands. She squeezes them gently. “We’re so close. And it’s all because of you. I’m so proud of you, darling.”

“When?” Stiles asks. They’re so close to finishing this and he knows they’ll have to strike quickly, before Tony and the team have chance to get control of the situation. 

“You need to recover first,” she reminds him firmly. “But once you’re ready, we’ll make our move.”

***

The bunker is so quiet now.

After half of the Avengers subdued Gunner and the other men, SHIELD had brought them in, ensuring they couldn’t return to Julia. They’ll probably be questioning them, trying to pump them for information on Julia and her whereabouts, but they won’t get anywhere; half an hour after leaving the safehouse, they’d been compelled to forget all about it, forget Julia and her plan, forget anything and everything except for their job in Times Square. 

Chase is gone. Klapow, as much of a dick as he was, is gone. Erin is gone.

It’s just the three of them now. The bunker, which used to feel too busy, too claustrophobic, now feels too big and empty. It gets under his skin just as much as the feeling of being caged in, and it’s made worse by the fact he can’t even go upstairs to sit by his window for a while. He’s still too weak to leave the couch for long; he just about manages to take himself to the bathroom instead of relying on Julia for help.

Kowalski is quiet, too. His normal friendly cheer has dimmed. Stiles thinks he and Erin were closer friends than Stiles had even realized. He wonders whether Kowalski will still be alive after they finish their mission. Julia had promised that she wouldn’t sacrifice Stiles, that she didn’t want to lose Kowalski, either, but Stiles knows that shit happens, knows that she might not be able to keep that promise. 

Sacrifices are needed for the greater good, after all. 

Julia doesn’t show Stiles the news, so he doesn’t know what’s happening in the outside world at all. He doesn’t know if the Avengers are managing to get a handle on the situation. He doesn’t know what’s going on with Bruce, whether he’s had to go on the run or if he’s been locked up. 

He wonders if Allison is alive.

He could check. All he would have to do is use one of the computers and search local hospitals, hack their records to see if Allison had been entered into their system. Hell, if that didn’t yield any results, he could hack into SHIELD; their file on her would have all of her medical information or confirmation of death. 

But he doesn’t. 

That guilt, the awful, angry, aching twist in his chest, is gone. It feels like it’s _right there_ , just slightly outside of his reach, hovering just inches away from the tips of his fingers. The guilt, the anger, the horror and remorse and frustration, it’s _almost_ there, but not quite. Instead, he feels empty, hollowed out until there’s nothing but a void inside him. 

He should feel relief, but that’s gone too. The terror he might feel at being stripped to almost nothing is beyond his grasp. He just feels _tired_.

He feels barely human anymore.

He wonders if, after this is all over, Julia will return that to him. Whether it will all come crashing down on him and what he will do if it does, how he will handle it. And if she doesn’t…is this it? Is this what he will be for the rest of his life?

He wonders if Julia prefers him like this.

It’s something he’s used to. It’s why he was lonely a lot as a kid; his energy, his tendency to talk at a hundred miles per hour, flitting from topic to topic without pause for breath, had worn on a lot of people’s nerves. Half of his teachers hated him for being able to achieve good grades while being so distracted and unfocused in class. The other half ignored him to the best of their ability, fed up of him. He constantly pissed off the people around him, running his mouth until it got him into trouble, too curious and too reckless for his own good. 

Even his dad got exasperated with him sometimes, exhausted from trying to get a handle on Stiles and keep him out of trouble. 

Scott’s the only person who has never run out of patience with Stiles. He always listens, attentive to every word that Stiles says, and he’s able to filter through it, figure out what Stiles is trying to say when his mind runs away with him. He’s always understood Stiles and he’s never wanted him to change, never wanted Stiles to mould and shape himself into something more palatable for the people around him.

He thought Julia might be another one; she understands him more intimately than he thinks anyone else ever has. But he wonders now if she prefers him like this, quieter, more withdrawn, everything he is leashed inside him like a caged, beaten animal. 

One morning, after Stiles has swallowed down some salty, slightly spicy broth Kowalski made, Julia settles next to him on the couch and carefully balances a chess board between them. 

“You can play, can’t you?” she asks. “You told me you used to have your own board.”

Stiles nods. “It was my mom’s,” he murmurs. “She taught me when I was little. It’s still at my dad’s house.” 

He’s always enjoyed chess. He likes how methodical it is, how he has to _think_ and plan; it pulls his mind in, focuses it entirely on the game. He’s good at chess but he hasn’t played in months. 

The last time he played was with Bruce. The two of them were pretty evenly matched; it was a toss-up each time who would win. But the few times Stiles managed to convince Tony to play with him, the older man completely _obliterated_ Stiles, every single time. The only other person who could beat Stiles at chess four times out of five was Steve.

Stiles watches Julia set the game up. Kowalski’s keeping watch, arms folded over his chest as he stares at the security footage. He doesn’t glance their way as they start to play. 

Julia’s good; she’s brilliant when it comes to tactics, her focus sharp on her plan, but she doesn’t deviate from it at all, even when Stiles catches on and adjusts his own method to counter her. She doesn’t catch on to his endgame as he sacrifices some of his pieces, carefully hemming her in, doesn’t realize what he’s doing until it’s too late and he has her trapped. She eyes the board, purses her lips slightly as she considers, but there’s nothing she can do. One move later and Stiles has her in checkmate.

“You’re so brilliant,” she says fondly, reaching out to cup his cheek, thumb stroking at his temple. 

Stiles shrugs slightly. “I’ve just had plenty of practise.” 

She smiles. “Well, chess was never really my game. Scrabble, on the other hand…”

He meets her gaze. “Oxyphenbutazone,” he replies evenly. “I spent way too much time in high school drinking energy drinks and going down a rabbit hole of looking up obscure words. I kick ass at Scrabble.”

Julia laughs. “You’re a menace. Cluedo?”

“Son of a Sherriff.”

“Jenga?” she tries with a grin.

“Last time I played it, I had the coordination of a drunk seal,” Stiles replies. 

Julia sits back. “I used to play board games with my students on the last day before summer break,” she says. “Scrabble, chess, Cluedo, Jenga, all of the best ones. I learned quickly not to bring Monopoly into it. High school kids are _vicious_ at that game. But it was fun.” She looks down, fiddling with a chess piece. “I miss it. Teaching, I mean. The kids meant a lot to me. It was a tough job sometimes, but when a student would thank me, or we’d all be laughing at something or enjoying class…it was nice. I miss that.” 

Stiles gazes at her, unsure what to say. She frowns slightly, lost in her own memories for a few minutes, rolling the chess piece between her palms. It leaves little indents in the fragile skin on her palms. Stiles tries to imagine Julia as a teacher, kind and funny and nurturing, a friend to the students as well as their mentor and teacher. He can see it easily; he sees it in the smile she offers sometimes, the excitement in her dark eyes when Stiles gets her talking about literature. Hears it in the vehemence in her voice when she talks about protecting future generations. 

It’s still there, a lingering echo of who she used to be, wrapped up tight in the woman she is now, stronger, angrier, more vicious. He wonders just how badly her fiancée fucked her up to turn her into the warrior she is now. Just how long did that betrayal fester inside her, poisoning everything kind and gentle about her in order to create something with fire and steel and guts? 

Just like Stiles. Every day, he feels himself slipping further and further away from everything he used to be. He’s burned his old self to forge something new from the remains.

They’re both phoenixes, rising from the ashes.

Julia twitches slightly, yanks herself away from her own thoughts. She doesn’t look at him as she rearranges the pieces on the board.

“You’re good at tactical planning,” she says quietly. “Show me. How would you take the Avengers down?”

Stiles glances up at her and then back down at the board. He shifts some of the pieces around, quietly setting them up to represent the plan that’s always been there in his head, waiting for her to dig it out and use it. She watches, listening intently as he explains, nodding slightly. It’s similar to her own plan but with a few changes, a few little corrections to give them a stronger chance of pulling it off.

Julia reaches out, taps her fingertip against the king. “Captain America?” she asks. “Or Tony Stark?”

Stiles looks at the king, can see what she’s thinking: she can see each team member on the board, their strengths and weaknesses, how they’ll try and defend and protect each other while working to bring Julia down and stop Stiles. Steve makes sense as the king. He’s strong, he’s intelligent, and he cares about Stiles. Tony makes sense, too; he leads the team alongside Steve, has the suit and the technology and the brains, and, most importantly, the determination to bring Stiles down if needs be. 

“The king is the biggest threat,” Stiles replies.

Julia nods slightly. “Steve.” 

She reaches out again, this time pushing at the king. They both watch as it falls down.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the chapter a few of you have been waiting for! Just one more chapter to go after this, and I'll be posting that soon. After that, I'll be working on the next fic in this 'verse.
> 
> I found this chapter to be a massive challenge to write and even now, I'm not entirely satisfied with it. But it got to the point where I knew if I didn't post it, I'd just keep reworking it and it would never be finished. I really hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for: violence, death, blood, gore, graphic descriptions of injuries, graphic descriptions of death, civilian death, guns, explosions, attempted suicide, and mind control.
> 
> This chapter is pretty intense with some dark themes, so please be cautious if anything I've mentioned above could be uncomfortable for you.

It’s a quiet, choked sound that wakes Stiles up.

He blinks sluggishly, trying to clear the sleepy fog from his mind as he slowly sits up. The blankets pool around his waist, tangled up around his legs. It’s late, almost one in the morning, and Kowalski’s asleep on his bunk; Stiles can hear his faint snores.

Julia’s sat at one of the computers. She’s pale, visibly shaken, hands trembling and fingers curled tightly around the edge of the terminal as she stares at the screen. Alarm slices through the last tendrils of sleepiness, sends a sting of adrenaline through Stiles.

“Have they found us?” 

Julia tears her gaze away from the computer and looks at Stiles with wide eyes. “It’s her. She’s here.”

For a second, he frowns, confused, but then he sees the fear and rage in her eyes and it clicks into place. “ _Kali_?” he asks, incredulous. “She’s here?”

He gets to his feet, stumbles in the blankets and has to wrestle himself free from them before he can stagger across the room to her. He leans against the chair, still too weak, and he’s cold, so goddamn cold without the blankets, but he bends to look at the computer screen. 

It’s the camera at the end of the street. The woman – Kali – is just stood there, hands tucked into the pockets of her coat, and she looks right at the camera. 

“Is it a trap?” he asks. “SHIELD? The Avengers?”

Julia shakes her head slightly. “No. She wouldn’t…no. She wants me to know she’s here.” 

Stiles rests his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently, trying to offer comfort. “You don’t have to see her. I can take care of it. Or Kowalski can.”

Her laugh is dark and wild edged. Stiles remembers what Julia said, about sending him after Kali, and he wonders if she’ll make him fulfil that agreement now. 

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Stiles waits, watching as she slowly stops trembling, the shock and fear seeping away and leaving vicious anger in its wake. When she opens her eyes again, they’re hard and determined. 

“No,” she says. “I want to see her.”

Stiles nods. “And me?”

“Sit. I can handle it.” Julia stands and cups his face, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’m going to let her in.”

Stiles sits back down on the couch, but he doesn’t drag the blankets back over him. He wants to be free to move if he needs to, ready to protect Julia if Kali tries to attack her. He watches the security footage as Kali enters the house and walks down the steps to the bunker.

Julia had changed the passcode when they moved into the abandoned safehouse and she unlocks the door before waiting a few feet away from it, tense like a coiled spring. The door opens and Kali steps inside.

Stiles doesn’t know much about her, only the brief snippets Julia has offered him about the other woman and her betrayal. She’s tall and lean with dark skin and glossy black hair that spills down her back. A scar slashes her skin, starting just beneath her ear and cutting down her jaw, stopping just short of her throat. She keeps her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket but Stiles can see the slight tremor that ripples through her frame. 

The door shuts behind her and for a moment, she just stands there, staring at Julia. Stiles doesn’t know what he expected, but the look in her eyes is so _human_ , so fragile and pained. She steps forward, stops again, gaze drinking Julia in.

“You really are alive,” she says finally. “I saw it on the news, saw that they’re looking for you, but I couldn’t…it’s _true_.”

Julia tips her chin up and displays her own scar. “Yes.”

“Your hair’s shorter.”

“Yours is longer,” Julia counters. “The scar is new. What happened?”

Kali lifts her hand and rubs slightly at the scar. “Hydra.”

Julia’s laugh is bitter. “Yeah. You really can’t trust Hydra, can you?” 

Kali visibly flinches. She starts to step forward, hand reaching out, but she stops when Julia jerks back, out of reach.

“Don’t you _dare_ touch me,” she snarls.

Stiles leans forward, ready to intervene, but Julia holds her hand out, silently gesturing for him to hold back for now. The anger on her face is like nothing Stiles has ever seen before, ugly and brutal, turning her into a stranger. She doesn’t seem human right now; she’s danger, pure and deadly and cold as ice as she stares Kali down.

Kali must see it too and Stiles realizes that this is the first time she’s seen Julia since she slit her throat and left her for dead. She swallows, hands clenching into fists at her sides.

“I’m not Hydra.”

“You really don’t want to lie to me, Kali.”

She shakes her head. “It’s true. Just listen to me, Julia. _Please_.” She doesn’t try to step forward again but she holds up her hands, beseeching. “Do you remember that group I was trying to track down for SHIELD?”

Julia doesn’t answer, just watches Kali, ruthlessly silent. There’s threat in every line of her body, ready to be unleashed at any second. It’s raw and beautiful. 

It’s terrifying.

“Every lead I found, it just…it stacked up and it stacked up and I knew it was bad. But I kept following the breadcrumbs and eventually…that mission in Berlin, I discovered the cell I was tracking was Hydra. They were still out there. They’d infiltrated SHIELD. And they were waiting for me.” Kali swallows, looks away for a second. “They said I had potential. That they wanted to recruit me. I said no.”

“So, what?” Julia asks coolly. “Did they offer you money? Power? Glory? What did it take for you to join them, Kali?”

“I would _never_ join Hydra. I thought you knew me better than that.”

Julia lashes forward, lip curling up slightly. “So did I. And then you slid a blade across my throat.”

Kali closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. “It’s ironic, I guess, given what they’re saying about you. About your power.” She looks at Julia, holds her gaze. “They brainwashed me.”

Julia’s eyes narrow, doubt stark on her face. She doesn’t say anything, though, just waits.

“It’s how they kept turning SHIELD agents,” Kali continues. “The ones who weren’t planted in SHIELD from the start or wouldn’t turn willingly, they put through their brainwashing program. I don’t…even now, I don’t remember much of it. I was tied up and they forced my eyes open with these prongs so I couldn’t look away from the video. It was…it was pure hell. I know that much. And I fought it, I promise you, I fought it with everything I had. But it was too much. Deucalion was too skilled at it his job.”

Julia tenses. “Deucalion. He was the man who you left with.”

“He’s a powerful figure within Hydra. He was in charge of their brainwashing program. After they succeeded, he became my handler. And after…after my cover was blown, he told me to kill you, to erase everything from my old life. We had to hit the ground and stay low until Hydra was ready to rise up again.”

“And…what? You’ve broken the brainwashing?” Julia challenges darkly.

“Yes.” 

“Just like that?”

Kali’s laugh is sharp and hollow. “No. It took everything I had. I’m still…even now, every single day, it hurts. I wake up and I have to remember who I am all over again. I still have to fight that conditioning. But I keep going. Because I won’t let them take me again, Julia. I won’t let him find me. I’ve been running for so long. But then I saw you were alive. You’re _alive_.”

For a few long, tense minutes, Julia is completely silent. She keeps her gaze on Kali, reading her expression, clearly trying to decide if she believes her. Eventually, some of the threat eases from her posture and she steps forward, closer to Kali. She reaches out her hand and her fingertips brush against Kali’s; the other woman trembles slightly, gives a choked gasp, and the pain and guilt and hope on her face is too raw to be anything but genuine.

“You slit my throat,” Julia says quietly. “You left me on the ground, covered in my own blood.”

“I know. And after…after I started to fight the conditioning again, it _killed_ me, Julia. I thought you were dead. I thought I’d killed you. Part of me died too, you have to know that. I’ve spent all this time carrying your ghost around with me, right here.” Kali presses Julia’s hand over her heart. “But Jules…do you know how many throats I’ve cut open? Yet with you, I didn’t push the knife in deep enough. I failed. On some level, deep down inside of me, I was still fighting. I tried to ensure you would survive. And you did.”

Julia’s eyes squeeze shut and she tips forward, leans her forehead gently against Kali’s. “And now? What do you want?”

“I want _you_. I want…I want to make everything right, Julia. I want your forgiveness. I want you to stop, I want you to come away with me. I have money. I have everything we need to run away and start a new life. I just want _you_.”

Julia goes still. “You want me to stop.”

“Jules, look at me,” Kali says quietly, cupping Julia’s face and tilting it up slightly. “This is wrong. You know it is. All of this, everything you’ve done, whatever you have planned…it’s _wrong_. I know you’re angry. I know you want to destroy Hydra. And you _can_. We can take them down together.”

She jerks back, shaking her head. “But it’s not just Hydra. It’s all of them. While there’s good, there will always be the bad, don’t you see that? I have to get rid of _all_ of them. Only then can everything be clean again. The power and law will be back in _our_ hands, not in the hands of superheroes or the likes of Hydra.”

“You’ve hurt people. _Killed_ people. I look at you and I don’t see Julia. _My_ Julia. The woman I love and want to spend forever with. I see…I see someone so full of pain and rage that it’s consumed her. And I get it. I do. After what happened to you…after what _I_ did…I get it. But you have to stop. You have to let this go.”

For a long moment, Julia just stares at her. Then, very softly, “And if I don’t?”

“Julia… _please_.”

Julia reaches up and cups Kali’s face, holding her gaze. Cool silver-white shrouds over her eyes. 

Kali jerks back, staggering away, her gaze sliding to the floor. “ _Don’t_ ,” she says hoarsely. “After Hydra…after fighting so hard to get control of my own fucking mind again…don’t take that away from me. If you love me…if you _ever_ loved me, you wouldn’t do that to me.”

Julia bristles. “It’s not like _Hydra_ ,” she snaps. “It’s _love_. It’s companionship and…and belonging to me.”

“You can’t own everything, Julia. You don’t own the people you love.”

“I can. I _do_.” Julia’s fingers press against her own scar. “It’s the only way to make sure they won’t hurt me. To make them _stay_. Don’t you get that?” She turns towards Stiles. “Tell her. Tell her it isn’t wrong, that it isn’t like Hydra. Tell her how wonderful it feels.”

Stiles looks at Kali. “I’ve never been this happy,” he says. “I never feel alone now. Julia’s always with me.”

He’s never felt this cold or empty, either, but he keeps that to himself, buries it again, deep down in the depths of his mind. 

Kali just holds his gaze. Something like understanding and pity flickers across her face. “I’m sorry,” she replies quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

Stiles looks away.

“Kali…Hydra ruined you. They wrecked _us_ , everything we could have been.” Julia says softly. “Don’t you want revenge?”

“No. I just want to be free.”

Julia shakes her head. “We’ll never be free. Not until it’s all over. Not until the world is safe from the people running around with powers and weapons, acting without consequences. That’s why I’m doing this. Because I love you. Because I want to be safe and free, I want _everyone_ to be safe.”

“This isn’t _safety_. It isn’t freedom. I can’t let you do this.” Kali holds out her hand. “Please. Just leave with me.”

Julia looks at her hand. Something slashes across her face, dark and twisted and gone too fast for Stiles to figure out exactly what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking. Her fingers twitch slightly, reaching towards Kali’s hand, and Stiles watches, silent, listens to the quiet hitch in Kali’s breath as she waits and she hopes.

Julia closes her eyes and straightens, steel in her spine, expression cold and sharp as ice. When she opens her eyes again, there’s something brutal in their depths. She grabs Kali’s hand and uses it to pull her in to her other fist. The punch is clean and sharp and Kali reels back for a second before twisting in Julia’s hold, trying to get leverage to restrain her.

Their fight is brief and fierce; Kali is a skilled fighter but it’s clear she has the disadvantage. She doesn’t want to hurt Julia, doesn’t want to _kill_ her, but Julia is fighting ruthlessly, not holding back as she drives her knee into Kali’s ribs and snaps an elbow into her jaw. When Kali tries to twist Julia’s arm, she drops and throws Kali over her back, slamming her down into the coffee table.

The glass shatters underneath her, shards scattering across the floor. Stiles shifts back on the couch, avoiding the pieces that get too close, but he’s tense and on edge, ready to intervene if Julia needs him to. 

But Julia doesn’t even glance at him; she straddles Kali, uncaring of the way glass digs through the knees of her jeans as she brings her elbow down into Kali’s face. The other woman lifts her arms, blocks another strike, and struggles to throw Julia off. She doesn’t see the fingers that curl around a large shard of glass, cutting into skin and smearing with blood. She doesn’t see Julia’s hand swing towards her until it’s too late. 

The glass pierces Kali’s throat in one smooth, brutal movement; Julia sinks it in deep and slashes across. Blood spills immediately, splattering Julia’s face. It spills between Kali’s fingers and down her clothes as she reaches for the wound, eyes wide and shocked. 

It’s unnerving; even as she chokes on her own blood, body jerking slightly in mindless, automatic panic, Julia just looks down at her. She holds her gaze until the end, and only when Kali goes still and silent, eyes blank and unseeing, does she move. She leans down and cradles Kali’s head in her hand, thumb stroking over the shell of her ear. With a careful, tender touch, she slides Kali’s eyelids shut and presses a brief kiss to her forehead.

Then she straightens, expression smoothing out as she turns. Stiles tears his gaze away from Kali to look at her.

He frowns. “But you loved her.”

“Of course I did. I always will.”

“She wasn’t evil. She wasn’t Hydra. She…they brainwashed her. You love her. And you killed her.”

“I told you. We all have to make sacrifices. She’s mine.” Droplets of blood are splattered across her face, vibrant against her pale skin, dripping from her bottom lip. 

Stiles stares at her. Her eyes are dark, gleaming with something violent and cruel, and with the blood on her face and smeared on her hands, she looks deadly and vicious. Her expression is cold. 

He sees her now. This isn’t someone who was betrayed and destroyed by someone she loved, someone who is trying to make things right and help people. This is someone who is too far gone, beyond control, beyond reason, beyond restraint. She’s sharp and she’s lethal, violence and ruin given a body and a voice. She’s a void, calling to the hurricane trapped inside Stiles’s ribcage.

She reaches out and rubs her thumb along his jaw, leaves blood behind like a petal on his skin. “Do you love me, Stiles? Do you belong to me?”

He looks at her, feels the response be pulled from him, yanked from his core, a quiet whisper between his clenched teeth. 

“Yes.”

***

Later, while Kowalski deals with the body and the blood, and Julia disappears upstairs, needing to be alone, Stiles slips into the bathroom and stares in the mirror.

He’s too pale, sickly looking, the blood crusted on his face vibrant and brutal. There are dark stains under his eyes; no matter how much he sleeps, he doesn’t feel rested. He scratches at the smear of blood on his chin, feels it start to flake off, and he realizes he doesn’t recognize his own face anymore.

His eyes are like Julia’s now. So dark and so empty.

Void.

***

Julia leaves for three days.

The bunker feels colder and even emptier without her. Kowalski doesn’t talk much, but he makes food for Stiles, checks on him regularly to make sure he’s recovering okay. There’s a tightness around his eyes. He looks as tired as Stiles feels; he can’t help but wonder how long the two of them can endure this slow grinding down of their souls. He thinks Julia’s control might kill them in the end. 

By the third day, Stiles feels recuperated enough to be able to move around more. He’s still weak and tired, but he can manage little laps of the bunker to try and get his strength up. He can fix himself a drink rather than rely on someone else to help him. The cold doesn’t ease at all, however; if anything, he thinks it’s getting worse, constantly gnawing away at his bones.

When Julia returns, she sees Stiles in the kitchenette, preparing himself a cup of coffee, and she smiles, warm relief on her face.

“You’re doing so well,” she says. “I’m proud.”

He doesn’t feel that thrill at her approval anymore, but he offers a smile of his own. “I’m getting there. Where have you been?”

“Recruiting,” she replies. “We’re ready for the final step. But I’ve had to make some adjustments.”

Stiles tilts his head slightly. “Why?”

She reaches out, cups his face gently. “Darling, you’re not well enough to help. I’ll send Kowalski in your place and you’ll monitor from here instead of him.”

“I can’t watch your back from here.”

“Of course you can. And it means you’ll be safe, waiting here for my return. Once it’s over, we can leave together.”

Stiles frowns. “Is he at risk? Kowalski?”

“I hope not, but I can’t guarantee it.”

“Why is his life worth less than mine?”

“It’s _not_ ,” she insists, voice fierce, steel on her tongue as she presses their foreheads together. “I love him. But you…you’ve bonded with me more than anyone else. You understand me. This…this darkness inside of me, it calls out and _you_ answer it, Stiles. I can’t lose that. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t,” he promises, gripping her wrists gently. “You won’t lose me. But if you trust me that much…trust that I will protect you, better than anyone else can. We’ll pull this off together. We’ll _win_. And when it’s over, we won’t have lost anyone else. Kowalski can come with us.”

She hesitates. “I don’t like the risk.”

“It’s _less_ risky if we stick to the original plan,” he points out. “They care about me. Even…even if they can’t forgive me for what I’ve done, I know they still care, enough that it will put them at a disadvantage. We won’t have that leverage if Kowalski replaces me.”

“But you’re not well enough for it.”

“The serum,” he suggests. “Let me have one vial of it. It’ll give me the energy and strength I need to do whatever it takes.”

Julia gazes at him, considering. She knows he’s right, is fully aware that they’ll be less likely to pull this off if Kowalski and Stiles switch places. He sees it in her eyes; her determination to win is easily stronger than any fondness or attachment she has to Stiles. 

She wants him to survive. She wants him to stay with her. But if she has to, she’ll sacrifice Stiles, if it means she wins. 

“For the greater good,” he says gently. 

She exhales slowly. Nods once.

“For the greater good.”

***

Stiles doesn’t bother with a disguise.

He dresses for the mission; cargo pants, boots, a navy sweater. But he doesn’t put on his Kevlar vest. He lingers by his bunk for a moment before sitting down, sliding his hand under his pillow. His fingers brush cold metal; Steve’s dog tags, kept safe beneath the pillow because he hadn’t been able to bear wearing them.

Now, he holds them in his palm, gazes down at the polished, gleaming metal. He runs his fingers across the surface, feeling the bumps and valleys of the tiny letters stamped into it; Steve’s name, service number, blood type, person to notify, all of it ingrained in his memory. He curls his fingers around the tags, lets Steve’s name bite into the skin of his palm, and then he slips the chain over his neck. 

He tucks the tags underneath his sweater so he can feel the metal against his bare skin. When he moves, the tags clink together quietly, the chain cool around his neck. He presses his hand over his chest, trapping the tags between his sweater and his flesh, and gets to his feet, leaving the room.

This time, Julia’s joining him, dressed in slim black pants, tall boots and a thin sweater under her leather jacket. She’s pinned her hair back in a ponytail, held securely away from her face.

Stiles slips a knife into each boot and holsters a Glock 19 at his waist. Julia arms herself similarly and tucks a comms unit in her ear, handing another to Stiles. 

Kowalski’s seated at the computer terminal, a comms device in his own ear. He’ll be monitoring CCTV, guiding them and giving them their best possible escape options if they need it. If necessary, he’ll be their back up. 

Julia opens the safe and pulls out her little case. There’s only one vial left; she’s already distributed the other three to the chosen recruits. She hands it to Stiles but pauses, closing her fingers around his when he starts to withdraw.

“Don’t take it right now.”

He pauses and tilts his head slightly. “I need the strength.”

“I know. But I don’t…I don’t like what it did last time. I want you to take it at the last opportunity, okay? When you have no other choice. If you don’t _have_ to, then don’t use it. I hate how much it hurt you.”

Stiles nods and she smiles, leaning in to press a grateful, sweet kiss to his jaw before she turns to Kowalski, running over the plan and his instructions one last time. Stiles prepares the serum, gets it ready inside a needle, and makes sure it’s capped before he stashes it safely in his pocket, next to his pill.

He tugs on his wool coat, the one that hides the holster, and waits until Julia is ready. He catches Kowalski’s gaze and steps forward, offering his hand.

“Hopefully, I’ll see you when this is done,” he says.

Kowalski shakes his hand. “Good luck.”

Stiles turns to Julia and she smiles softly at him, holding out her hand. He takes it and they leave the bunker together, the door closing behind them with a heavy, metallic _thud_. 

He puts the comms unit in his ear and follows Julia up the stairs. He leaves through the window first and offers her a boost over the wall before climbing over it himself. They move silently, side by side, until they reach the building Julia had chosen; they climb the stairs, heading up to the roof as Julia checks the comms.

“You got us, Andrzej?” she asks.

“Affirmative. I made sure none of the cameras would find you.”

She smiles. “And our boys?”

“Clear on the other channel,” Kowalski replies. “They’re in position and waiting on your signal.”

Julia looks at Stiles. “Ready?”

He nods once and she grins, quick and sharp. Together, they kick open the door leading out onto the roof. There’s nothing special about the building except for its location, overlooking Central Park. In the distance, the ruined remains of the Avengers tower is visible. 

It takes them less than five minutes to set up. Julia hands Stiles a phone, sleek and compact and, ironically, a Stark design. 

“Okay, Andrzej,” she says over the comms. “Give them my signal. We’re in our countdown.”

The recording Stiles sets up on the phone is livestreaming across various platforms. The signal will already be out; SHIELD, the Avengers, anyone who wants to get their hands on Julia will be on their way any second now. He focuses the camera on her.

She stands near the edge and gazes straight at the lens, expression warm, almost serene. 

“I know what they’ve been calling me,” she says, calmly, distinctly. “I know what they’ve been saying about me. I know what people must think about me. But let me tell you who I am. I’m not Joanna Bradley. I’m not Jennifer Blake. I’m not the villain.

“I am Julia Baccari. I was a teacher. A daughter, a girlfriend, a best friend. I had two cats. I liked cheesy romance novels, I hated cooking but I made breakfast in bed for my fiancée every single Sunday, and _Say Yes to the Dress_ was my go to comfort show. And Hydra took all of that away from me. They took my fiancée from me. They destroyed my entire life. Just as they’ve been doing to so many people for decades. No matter what our government says, no matter what _SHIELD_ does, Hydra’s poison still seeps over every corner of our world. To get rid of them, we have to get rid of them all. The Avengers are just a small part of that, a group of people who run around and do what they want without consequences and dare to call it ‘justice’.

“They bring danger and chaos and destruction to this city just as much as the so called bad guys do. The only way to stop it, the only way we can truly be _safe_ , is to eliminate all of them. Cut out the poison and retire those who call themselves heroes. It’s time to put justice back into the right hands. _Our_ hands. Today is the day we do that. Today, we return the power to where it belongs: _us_. Not them. This is a war we’ve been fighting without even realizing it, but today…”

Stiles hears Kowalski in his ear, hears the signal over the comms, and a second later, an explosion rocks Central Park. Stiles zooms in with the camera, focuses on Julia, her arms spread at her sides, lit up from behind by fire. Dark eyes stare straight at the camera and she smiles.

“Today we _win_.”

Stiles stops recording and tosses the phone aside. Julia steps away from the edge of the building and turns, staring at the chaos in the park. Even from their position, Stiles can hear the chaos, the screams and the panic and the sirens wailing. 

It’s just the start.

Three recruits will now be moving, injecting themselves with the serum. Except, unlike Gunner and the others, they won’t be controlling it; they’re going to allow it to consume them. There’s no restrictions this time, just pure, burning rage unleashed on the city, raining down hell and destruction.

More will be in position, waiting for Julia’s command, ready to set off their own explosions. They’re all around the city, strategically placed to cause as much damage as possible. And, all around the globe, members of Viper will be rising up, taking up arms against superheroes, vigilantes and villains alike, fighting against the authorities and anyone else who tries to stop them. Around the world, people are in place, under Julia’s control; people with power, with wealth, with influence, ready to denounce superheroes and blame the destruction of New York on them, ready to use the media and the public in order to make sure the likes of the Avengers are held accountable and locked up.

After today, there will be no going back. 

This is the endgame.

Stiles slips the needle out of his pocket and tugs the cap off. Julia had asked him to wait, asked him to only inject the serum if he had to, but he knows what’s coming. He’s too weak to fight in the condition he’s in now and he has to be ready. It’s the only way.

He stabs the needle into his thigh and pushes down on the plunger.

Fuck, but it hurts this time. His body is still fragile, mind still fractured from the last time he took the serum and fought until it almost killed him; his soul hasn’t scarred over, is still raw and bleeding, and the fire and rage and power is _agony_ as it roars through him, battering inside him until he feels like it’s going to rip him apart and leave him in bloody shreds of flesh and bone on the ground.

Julia turns and grabs his shoulders as he goes down, fingers biting into his shoulders.

“I told you to _wait_.”

“Had to,” he grunts, the words squeezing between clenched teeth as he bites back a scream. “Have to be ready.”

She strokes at his jaw, trying to soothe him, to anchor him as he fights for control, lava sliding through his veins and burning in his throat. It’s lighting him up from the inside, an unstoppable force, and he falls forwards onto his hands, shaking and gasping.

She talks him through it, low and reassuring, and she doesn’t let him go as the battle inside of him rages on, bloody and violent, until, desperately, he manages to leash that supernova. He claws back control inch by agonizing inch until, finally, the strength belongs to him and not the other way around.

He gets to his feet, gently squeezes Julia’s hand to reassure her, and she presses her forehead against his for a moment before pulling back. 

“Do you have it?” she asks.

Stiles nods, slipping a small control out of his pocket. He lets his thumb press lightly on the button but he doesn’t push down. He won’t until she gives the signal. He doesn’t know why she doesn’t give it now, why she’s so insistent on a confrontation, but he thinks about the violent intensity of her anger, thinks about that void inside of her that motivates her every move, and he knows that she doesn’t just want to win.

She wants them to _watch_ her win. She wants them to be there, wants them to witness her victory, and she wants to see the look on their faces when everything comes crashing down around them.

The door bangs open. 

Stiles and Julia both lift their guns, standing just a few feet apart as they aim. 

It’s Steve who steps out onto the roof first, dressed in his uniform, but with his cowl pushed back, exposing his face. He holds the shield at his side. Clint joins him, bow drawn, aim focused on Julia, and Bucky’s just a step behind, a gun in his hand. 

Julia switches her aim slightly, focusing the gun on Bucky instead, but Stiles keeps his attention on Steve, grip calm and ready on his Glock. Clint’s gaze flickers to him for a second before returning to Julia. His muscles pull tighter and Stiles knows what he’s thinking.

If he kills Julia, Stiles will snap free from her control.

Julia knows it, too, but she just smiles, holding Clint’s gaze. It’s sharp and sincere; she’s not bluffing. It’s enough to make all three of them hesitate because if Julia’s smiling, it means she knows something they don’t. They won’t take the risk until they have better control over the situation.

“Thor, Iron Man and Falcon have gone after our enhanced guys,” Kowalski says over the comms. “Black Widow is working with SHIELD, trying to control the Viper crowds. Exactly like you said, Julia.”

Her face tips ever so slightly towards Stiles without tearing her gaze away from the three Avengers staring them down. She’d suspected Steve would be the one to confront them on the roof, but it was Stiles who predicted everything else. 

“Stiles,” Steve says quietly. “You know I can’t let you do this.”

Stiles meets his gaze. If he pulls the trigger now, the bullet will strike right between Steve’s eyes. “You know what happens if you try and stop me, Steve.”

“You’ll kill me?” he steps forward slightly, lifts his shield a little more. “I don’t think Julia wants me dead. It doesn’t fit into her rhetoric.”

“You’re just one superhero,” Stiles replies. “If you have to die…you have to die. Sacrifices are necessary.”

“Like Chase Phillips? Adrian Klapow? Erin Sullivan?” Clint asks. “Were their deaths necessary?”

Stiles grits his teeth and has to take a deep breath as raw anger sears through him. “Don’t.” 

Julia’s gaze flickers lightning-quick to Stiles and then back to the three Avengers. Silver-white frosts across her irises, her gift spilling out around them; Stiles can feel it, sucking him in like a black hole, cold and hungry, determined to devour.

She focuses on Clint. “Put down your bow.”

Clint goes tense for a moment. His upper lip curls as he bares his teeth in dark anger, but he doesn’t lower his bow. Julia goes still, shock slashing across her face. 

Stiles stares at Clint, looking closer at the tiny devices in his ears. He’d spotted them and dismissed them, mistaken them for his usual, discreet hearing aids, but these are different. Now he’s looking, _really_ looking, he realizes Steve and Bucky are wearing them too.

So this is what the Avengers have been working on: technology to counteract Julia’s power, filter her voice so it doesn’t affect them, no matter how much she glows her eyes at them. Stiles had thought they’d been quiet, certain they had a plan of their own, coming together to find a way to defeat Julia. 

“Sorry,” Bucky drawls. “Not gonna work on us.”

He steps forward but Julia stands her ground, tips her chin up slightly. Her irises are dark again, glinting with violence; she’s furious that her gift isn’t working on them. Stiles glances between her and Steve. 

“I don’t need it to work to get you to kneel,” she replies, tone deceptively calm. 

“Call it, Cap,” Clint says. “Tell me I can put an arrow between her eyes.”

Julia smiles. “I hear you’re good with that bow. But I don’t think any of you are fast enough to kill me before Stiles puts a bullet through Captain Rogers’s skull.” She tips her head slightly. “And definitely not before he presses that button.”

Stiles lifts his hand slightly to show the device in his hand. He keeps his thumb on the button; all it would take is a twitch of muscle, less than a second, and fire and destruction will tear the city apart. 

“Stiles is the first,” she adds softly, so calmly, because she knows she’s firmly in control now. “The second his explosion goes off…all of the others will follow. The city you love, the one you’ve sworn to protect, will be reduced to rubble and ruins. Are you really arrogant enough to risk it? Any of you?”

Steve holds her gaze, jaw tight. She just smiles, expectant, and, as Stiles had predicted, Steve lowers his shield and lets it drop to the rooftop. 

“Do it,” he says to Clint and Bucky.

The arrow slides neatly back into Clint’s quiver, the bow lowered to his side. Bucky reluctantly holsters his guns. Julia watches and there’s victory in her expression, sharper than any knife. She’s winning and she visibly savors it, drinks in Steve’s defeat, all of her carefully placed dominos falling down exactly as she planned. All of her hard work, all of the time and effort and planning, is paying off. 

“What do you want?” Steve asks.

“I want to win,” she replies softly. “I want you to kneel. All of you. I want you to _watch_ me win. I want to see the look on your face as this city crumbles apart. I want to make you _suffer_. And most of all…I want you to see _him_ ,” she gestures to Stiles. “I want you to watch him be the one to burn everything and everyone, knowing that you failed him. That loving him wasn’t enough to save him.”

Stiles looks at her. That emptiness is back in her eyes, the howling void inside her growing and growing, eating away anything remotely human about her. He knows it won’t be enough to win. It won’t be enough to make them suffer. She’ll always want more, will always crave the violence and destruction; she wants to savor every last drop of pain and grief she can wring from them.

The second Stiles presses the button, their leverage is gone. Julia won’t be able to get away and neither will Stiles. The Avengers won’t have reason to hold back anymore; if they can’t save the city, then they’ll do exactly what their name suggests, and they’ll start by taking Julia down. 

She knows this. She wants this. 

She’s going to kill them.

She’s going to make _Stiles_ kill them.

Steve’s eyes slide away from Julia’s face and settle instead on Stiles. He doesn’t even glance at the gun still trained on him, doesn’t flinch at whatever he sees in Stiles’s expression. His eyes are so blue, so soft and so open, showing the depth of his anger and sorrow. It tugs at something inside Stiles, something buried deep, smothered under Julia’s cool grip on his mind. He tries to chase it but it’s gone a second later, burned away by the rage searing through his veins, leashed by the barest threads of Stiles’s control.

“Stiles,” he says quietly. “I know you. I know you don’t want to do this.”

“I don’t want anything anymore, Steve,” Stiles replies. “I’ll do whatever she asks of me.”

“I don’t think you will. Because I know you. I _see_ you, all of you, and no matter how strong she thinks she is…I know you’re stronger. That kindness, that fierce love and desire to protect the people you care about, I’ve always seen that in you, always loved it. I know you won’t do this. Because I know who you are. You’re not the kind of person to slaughter thousands of innocent people. You’re not like her, Stiles, and you don’t belong to her.”

“You say you know me,” Stiles shoots back. “Did you know that I would stab Allison?”

“Yeah, Allison’s kind of pissed about that, dude.”

Julia straightens as the door creaks behind Steve. Scott doesn’t hover behind the line of protection; instead, he walks right past the superheroes and doesn’t even spare Julia a single glance as he stops just a few feet away from Stiles. There’s no fear on his face; courage and determination are written across his features, brown eyes meeting Stiles’s gaze without hesitation. 

Stiles’s father is right behind him. He’s unarmed and uncaring of the gun in Stiles’s hand as he settles a hand on Scott’s shoulder.

Stiles looks at them. Looks at Steve, Bucky and Clint, the three of them stood in a row, and then at John and Scott, stood almost within touching distance of Stiles. 

He thinks about the chess board back at the bunker, thinks about the pieces he’d arranged, set up almost identically to the people he’s staring at now.

“Allison’s alive?” he asks quietly.

Scott nods. “She’d be here if it wasn’t for Natasha insisting that she stays in the hospital,” he replies. “She’s pretty angry, buddy.”

“She’s gonna kick my ass, isn’t she?” The words slip out before he even thinks them and Scott smiles at him, warm and full of love.

“I don’t think it’s your ass she wants to kick,” he answers. 

Something inside of Stiles shifts, clicks into place. He’d stabbed Allison and still her fury is aimed at Julia. Everything he’s done, all the ways he’s damaged the Avengers, and they’re here, not to kill him but to save him. He doesn’t deserve it…yet they’re here all the same.

“Stiles,” Julia says, stepping closer, her thrall wrapping around him. “Press the button.”

Stiles looks down at the device in his hand. The button is warm underneath his thumb, heated by the constant contact with his flesh. He can feel Steve’s dog tags against his chest. Can feel everyone’s attention on him. 

The fury inside him isn’t a hurricane anymore; it’s filled the void inside him, a column of fire spiralling up and up and up, ready to incinerate whatever it touches. The buzzing in his head is so loud, spitting like an angered animal, pain sinking bloody, vicious teeth into his brain. 

Slowly, he lowers the gun in his hand. 

“ _Stiles_ ,” Julia snaps. 

John steps forward. “Stiles,” he says. His voice is so quiet and soft, and when Stiles meets his gaze, he doesn’t look at him as a threat, as an explosion waiting to happen; he looks at Stiles the way he always did after helping him through a panic attack, protective and loving and full of sorrow. “If there’s any part of you that is still my son…then you’ll stop. You’ll stop all of this. Because you know I’m here to protect you, from her, from yourself…and from everyone else. Claudia -.”

Stiles bares his teeth, almost _snarls_. “Are you gonna tell me that mom wouldn’t want this? Would want me to stop? Don’t you _dare_. She’d be proud of me.” 

His dad shakes his head and steps forward again. He’s close enough now that he could reach out if he wanted to, could try and take the device out of Stiles’s hand, but he doesn’t. Instead, he curls his fingers around Stiles’s other wrist, comforting rather than restraining.

“No. I’m telling you that she wouldn’t want you to be alone. And neither do I. So I’m going to stay right here, with you, no matter what happens next. No matter what you do. I’m here, Stiles. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Neither am I,” Scott murmurs, approaching until he’s right next to John, and he reaches out, grips Stiles’s other wrist, gentle but without hesitation. “I told you I will always follow you and I meant it. It’s me and you, Stiles, until the end. It always has been. So if you do this…then we do it together.”

The sound that chokes out of Stiles is raw and wounded. He can feel blood trickle from his nose. His skull feels like it’s shattering inwards, piercing bone into his brain, and he can’t tell where the raging fire of the strength ends and the roaring agony in his head begins; they’re all tangled together, ruthless and cruel. 

“Stiles,” Julia seethes and her thrall presses down on him, sinks relentless fingers into his mind. “Press the button. _Do it_.”

Stiles’s fingers curl tighter around the device. His arm is tense, muscles straining, and he realizes he’s shaking. Tears slide hotly down his cheeks and he steps back, pulling away from the hands on him. 

And then he lets go.

The control starts to fall but John reaches out before it can clatter to the ground, catching it safely so the trigger won’t go off. Julia’s speaking, loud and frantic, and Bucky, Steve and Clint are moving but Stiles is faster, aiming the gun in his hand.

He pulls the trigger.

Julia staggers, hands going to her chest, before she crumples, eyes wide and shocked.

Stiles pushes past Scott and catches her as she goes down, cradling her in his arms. She’s clutching at the wound, dark blood spilling between her fingers, too fast and too much despite the pressure she’s trying to press down on it. Red beads on her lips and stains her teeth as she stares up at him. 

“The king,” she chokes out. “It was never Steve, was it?”

Stiles shakes his head slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“Checkmate, huh?” she says and the laugh she gives is weak and wild edged. “You’re so smart, darling. So brilliant.”

Stiles carefully takes her hand. Her blood slicks over his skin, hot and thick, and she manages to give his fingers a gentle squeeze. Stiles can feel the others around him but they don’t move in too close and he doesn’t tear his gaze away from Julia’s as he holds her. Even the splitting agony inside his skull feels distant now, crushed beneath the pain and guilt that’s breaking through her grip on his mind. 

“You said,” she pauses, chokes slightly; her lungs are filling, drowning her in her own blood. “You said you’d never hurt me.”

“I know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Will you stay?”

He nods. He’s not going anywhere; he’ll be with her until her last breath. He can keep that promise, at least. He hunches forward, slips his pill from his pocket, and slides it between his lips. He holds the capsule carefully between his teeth but he doesn’t bite down, not yet. He made a vow to stay with her until the end.

She chokes again, blood bubbling past her lips, and Stiles can feel her pulse, weak and thready, under his fingers. Her fingernails scratch at his hand, her eyes wide and full of pain as she gives one last, panicked struggle against the darkness, trying to hold out, to _live_. Her body rattles in his lap as she seizes once, twice, struggling for breath, and then goes still. 

She doesn’t breathe again, but he can still feel a pulse; barely there, fading rapidly, but fiercely hanging on. Her eyes stay locked on his face until she can’t keep them open anymore and they slide shut, long, dark lashes standing out against her ashen skin. 

Stiles leans back, closes his own eyes.

And starts to bite down.

He feels something – no, someone – slam into him, feels an arm around his body and fingers prying open his mouth to dig inside, trying to claw the capsule out. He struggles, tries to clamp down his teeth even as a hand keeps his jaw held open, and his head drops back, skull cracking against the rooftop.

The world goes dark.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are - the last chapter! 
> 
> I'm working on a fic that centres on Allison/Bucky/Natasha and will show glimpses of Allison's POV throughout the series so far, plus some extras. The first chapter will be up soon. 
> 
> The next fic in this 'verse is set after this one and I'll be sharing the first chapter of that soon. I really hope you all enjoyed this, please do give feedback if you can <3
> 
> warnings for this chapter: aftermath of mind control, hospitals, IVs, discussion of death, mention of surgery and blood transfusion, blood, graphic description of violence and injuries, discussion of attempted suicide, casual mention of suicide and self harm, panic attack, mention of anxiety, nightmares, graphic description of gore, discussion of drowning, and heavy angst.
> 
> (I promise it's not as dark or violent as it sounds, yikes)

He claws his way back to consciousness slowly, painfully, inch by horrible inch. 

His eyelids feel like lead; he can’t pry them open. His body feels heavy, like each limb is being weighed down with concrete blocks, and he _hurts_ , throbbing all over like he’s run a marathon while suffering from the flu from hell. Every inch of him feels bruised and he’s so cold, a dull ache in his bones.

But his head doesn’t hurt.

For the first time in weeks, there’s no buzzing, no crackle of pain or splintering agony in his head. There’s none of that coolness, either, the insidious serenity seeping through his skull. He feels alone, but there’s no pain, and it’s a welcome relief.

There’s a hand on his.

A memory fractures the fog shrouding him; Julia at his side the last time he woke up like this, her voice in his ear and her fingers wrapped around his. He tenses, breath catching, but the fingers on his hand are rough, skin calloused. 

“It’s okay, Stiles,” his dad’s voice reaches him, quiet and reassuring. “You’re okay. Just rest.”

Stiles lets himself drift again, falling back into the darkness. He doesn’t know how long he floats there, rising and falling without really gaining full consciousness, but when he gradually becomes more alert for the second time, his dad’s hand is still holding his. 

He rolls his head to the side. Even that feels like too much, like trying to move a tonne of concrete, but he manages it. He slits his eyes open; they feel too dry, sleep dust crusting at the corners, and he has to take a second to adjust to the soft, dim light in the room. 

He knows he’s in the hospital. The thin, slightly scratchy material of the blanket tucked over him is unmistakeable and the sharp, clean scent that fills his nostrils is familiar. He can feel the gentle tug in the hollow of his elbow of an IV. The room is quiet, silence broken only by the electronic hum of machinery and muffled, distant sounds filtering from the depths of the building. 

He’s always hated hospitals. 

His dad is sat at his side, hunched slightly to try and get comfortable, and Stiles winces in sympathy; the ugly plastic chair isn’t going to be kind to his back. His hand is wrapped securely around Stiles’s, his gaze is on the window, and he looks exhausted and worn down. 

Stiles tries to say something, but his mouth and throat feel desert dry; his tongue tastes gross, too heavy in his own mouth, and when he swallows, it stings. But the crackling sound he manages to hiss between his teeth gets his dad’s attention.

He meets Stiles’s gaze and a small, relieved smile clears some of the tiredness on his face. “Hey, kid.”

Stiles looks at him, taking in the sight of his dad. It’s the most comforting thing in the world: his dad is here, right next to him, and he’s not going anywhere. It makes Stiles feel safe. 

He twitches his head slightly to look around the room. He’s not on a ward; someone had sprung for him to get a private room. It’s night and the single window offers a view of the sky, stars dotting the swath of darkness with tiny beads of light. Tucked in one corner of the room are two armchairs for visitors, nestled in around a little table; Scott’s sprawled in one, fast asleep and snoring, and Steve is in the other, head pillowed in the crook of his elbow as he sleeps. 

“They’ve barely left this room,” his dad murmurs. “The nurses decided not to bother trying to kick any of us out.”

A tight, hot ache knots in Stiles’s chest. He gazes at Steve’s face, takes in the wrinkled clothes and messy hair, and looks at his best friend, who looks so young and peaceful right now, but had held on to Stiles on that rooftop and promised to always follow him, something determined and wise in his dark eyes.

“How…?” Stiles tries to ask, the single word rattling painfully in his throat.

His dad picks up a cup from the small table next to the bed. It’s got a lid and a bendy straw that John tilts to Stiles’s mouth, helping him to swallow down a few careful sips of water. It’s lukewarm and a little stale but it feels wonderful, soothing his dry mouth. 

“You’ve been out for about a week,” John murmurs. 

That makes sense; the first time he’d taken the serum and tried to burn out Julia’s control, it had knocked him out for days. This time, he’d fought hard enough to be able to shoot her, and the pain it had caused, the searing, splintering agony in his head, had been vicious. 

His dad reaches out to cup the back of Stiles’s head, cradling it gently, the way he used to when Stiles was a tiny, scrawny kid and just needed a hug and some comfort.

“Julia’s dead,” he says quietly.

Stiles already knows.

His mind is so quiet. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be the only one inside his head; it feels empty, silent, _strange_. He hadn’t realized just how much she’d stripped him of his control, of everything he was, until now; he feels completely in control of his own mind again, feels like _himself_ for the first time in months, and it’s almost overwhelming. 

He can’t feel her anymore. That cool coil of _Julia_ at the base of his skull is gone. 

She’s gone.

“You did it, kid,” John adds gently. “You fought her. You did what you had to in order to stop her. I’m so proud of you.”

Stiles stares at him. Something that’s almost a laugh and not quite a sob chokes in his throat, tears stinging his eyes, and his dad shifts to hug him, rocking carefully as he tries to comfort him. Stiles is desperate for the reassurance, needs a hug from his father more than anything else in the world right now, and, simultaneously, he can’t bear the touch, can’t stand to be comforted. He doesn’t know if he wants to cling to his dad or shove him away, but he can’t lift his hands, can’t do anything either way, so he just stays in his dad’s arms and lets silent tears slide down his cheeks.

Eventually, John helps him lie down properly, adjusting the pillows slightly. “You need to rest, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’ll be right here.”

Stiles doesn’t want to sleep. Now he’s a little more with it, he’s terrified of what might be waiting for him when he drifts. He doesn’t want to dream. He doesn’t want to think. He just doesn’t want to _be_.

But his eyes are already closing, the dark sucking him back under, and he hasn’t got the strength to fight it.

***

He doesn’t know how many times he drifts in and out of consciousness. He has brief snatches of memory, but most of it is lost to the fog still pressing down on him. 

He has a vague recollection of Steve being by his side at one point. He’d offered a small, tired smile when Stiles opened his eyes and stroked soothing patterns on Stiles’s forearm until he fell asleep again. He thinks he remembers Scott, too, talking to him for almost an hour while Stiles floated somewhere between consciousness and sleep. He doesn’t know if Lydia’s voice, reading aloud to him from _A Brief History of Time_ , was a dream or if it was real.

Each time he wakes up, he feels a little better, a little more with it. Clarity seeps through the fog, splintering it more and more, until, eventually, he wakes up and he feels actually alert. 

He opens his eyes and it’s daytime; it’s still a little too early for winter to start dissolving into spring, but flat sunshine slants through the window all the same, casting a pool of pale, cool light across the floor and the blankets on the hospital bed. The room is quiet; the door is shut, blocking out noises from the corridor. His dad and Scott are missing, but Steve’s sat at his side, hand resting gently on Stiles’s wrist, his gaze on the paperback book propped up in his lap.

The IV is still in Stiles’s elbow. He’s hooked up to a heart monitor, the leads tugging at the pads on his skin when he moves, but the machine is silent. 

Stiles shifts slightly, giving a relieved groan when he realizes he’s actually able to move without feeling like dead weight, and he stretches, easing the ache in his spine and the numbness in his ass from lying still. 

Steve looks up. The book in his lap slaps shut, sliding down his thigh to rest on the chair, but he doesn’t move to correct it. Blue eyes gaze at Stiles, taking in the expression on his face, and Steve doesn’t say anything, just scoots forward so he can hold Stiles’s hand properly.

“How many?” Stiles rasps.

Steve swallows. “Don’t,” he says gently. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

“Steve.” He holds Steve’s gaze, squeezes his hand slightly. “How many?”

He looks down, closes his eyes for a moment. “Globally, with the uprising from Viper…there were seventy-one casualties and a hundred and thirteen people injured.” He hesitates before adding, quietly, “Twenty-seven people were killed in the explosion in Central Park. Thirty-two were injured.”

Stiles tears his gaze away, stares at the ceiling instead. Ninety-eight people dead. Because of him. A hundred and forty five injured. Because of him.

And Chase. Klapow. Erin. Kali.

Dead. Because of him. Because he helped Julia, because he let her slip inside his mind and he let her rip him apart in order to mould him into her perfect weapon. Because he didn’t fight, not until it was too late, not until all of those people were already dead. 

“Stiles,” Steve says quietly. “Don’t.”

She’d known just how to use him. Not just his physical skills, but his intelligence, his ability to strategize. She’d manipulated his relationships to the people closest to him. He’d spied on them, studied them, learned their weaknesses and their strengths, got them to tell him things – about JARVIS, about the training bots, about the tower – and he’d handed it all over to Julia, allowed her to use him to turn all of that information against the team.

“Bruce?” he asks. 

Steve pauses. “He left,” he replies carefully. “After the explosion in the tower, he needed space. He needed to get away for a while.” 

Bruce, forced to go back into hiding, once again fearing his control over the Hulk, once again running from the authorities and the public. 

Because of Stiles.

“Allison?”

“She’s here,” Steve says. “She needed surgery and a blood transfusion, but the knife didn’t nick anything vital. She’ll recover.”

Stiles closes his eyes. The memory of stabbing Allison is painfully sharp in his mind; he can still feel the hot, slick sensation of her blood on his hands, can still hear her shocked, pained gasp in his ear. He can still see her face, pale and scared, eyes glazed over as she stares at him, pleads with him not to leave her. 

“What happened?” he asks without opening his eyes. “After…after I shot Julia.”

The chair creaks slightly as Steve shifts his weight. “I managed to get the capsule out of your mouth before you bit down on it. The doctors still did their checks for cyanide poisoning, but I managed to stop you just in time. But you’re coming down from the serum and recovering from mind control, so they’ve kept you on a drip to keep you hydrated and to administer pain relief.” 

Stiles does open his eyes then, looking at Steve for a long moment. His gaze doesn’t leave Stiles, blue eyes focused with startling, painful intensity on him. Stiles knows what’s coming, knows the question Steve is about to ask, but he doesn’t interrupt. 

“The cyanide. Was that…were you still under her control when you tried to bite down on that pill?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take it _because_ of her control?”

“I don’t know.”

Steve hunches forwards and leans his forehead against Stiles’s arm. A small tremor shakes through his body, the only outward sign of the emotion splitting through him, and Stiles wants to reach out, aches to touch Steve, to reassure him, but he can’t.

There is blood on his hands. He can’t bear for them to touch Steve now.

“If you’re asking if she ordered me to take the pill,” he says quietly. “The answer is no. In that moment, it was my choice. But…in that moment, I loved her, I depended on her, and I was torn apart with guilt for shooting her. Those feelings _were_ because of her mind control. So, right then, while I held her in my arms as she was dying, I made the only choice I felt made sense.”

“And now?” Steve asks, voice muffled against Stiles’s arm.

“Are you asking me if I still want to kill myself?”

Steve shakes again, breath hitching slightly, but he doesn’t shy away from the painful subject; he faces the question with his usual strength and courage, as fiercely determined as ever. 

“Yes.”

“No. I don’t.” 

Steve’s head lifts slightly and he looks at Stiles sharply, reading his expression, but he sees that Stiles is telling the truth. He means it. Now he’s himself, now he’s free from Julia’s control, he doesn’t want to kill himself. He doesn’t want to die.

There’s blood on his hands and death wrapped around his spine. He deserves to live with it.

Stiles looks away from those blue eyes; there’s a storm brewing inside him, vibrating behind his ribs, a crackling, heavy pressure and if he keeps looking at Steve, if he keeps waiting to see that betrayal and anger, that storm is going to break. It’ll tear him apart and he’s not ready for that yet.

Steve sits upright again and picks up the cup and straw from the table. Stiles has enough strength now to reach out and take it from him and he sucks at the straw, gulping down cool water to ease the fuzzy dryness in his mouth and throat. When he’s done, he sets the cup aside and licks his chapped lips, gazing up at the ceiling. 

“Kowalski?” he asks. 

“After Julia died, he surrendered,” Steve answers. “He’s with SHIELD, they’re taking care of him. We collected your things from the safehouse.”

Stiles chews that over for a moment before moving on. “I’m not in handcuffs. Why?”

He senses rather than sees Steve twitch. 

“What?”

“Steve, I killed people. The robots on New Year’s Eve. The guys pumped up on the strength serum. The tower, the Hulk, the explosion in Central Park, all of that was me. _I killed people_. So why am I not being arrested?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“ _Don’t_.” The word snaps harshly between Stiles’s teeth. 

“It wasn’t. No one blames you, Stiles.”

His laugh is hollow and bitter, expressing just how much he doesn’t believe that for a single fucking second. Julia’s plan had been executed flawlessly, right up until the end; of course people would be gunning for Stiles. They’d made goddamn sure of it, after all.

“No one blames you anymore,” Steve amends carefully. “Tony’s been working on it. Exposing Julia and everything she’d done; just how far reaching and dangerous her mind control was. Dr Simmons managed to get some tangible results when scanning the brains of the agents who’d been compelled to help Julia’s escape from SHIELD, so visible evidence of the control has helped. Plus…after she died, everyone under her control were freed from it. The fact that an alarming amount of powerful people had been under her compulsion helped sway people to the fact that it wasn’t their fault and it wasn’t _your_ fault. It’s…going to take some time to move past it altogether, but people trust the Avengers again, and that’s working in our favor. You’re the victim, Stiles. The public knows and understands that. You’ve been cleared of all blame in what happened. You’re not a criminal.”

“Just a murderer.”

“It was her, Stiles,” Steve says softly. “All her. Do you blame Bucky for what he did as the Winter Soldier? Or Clint for working against SHIELD and hurting people while under Loki’s control?” 

“No. Of course not. But this is…this is different, Steve. _I_ did those things. I didn’t just do what she told me to. I helped her, I made plans and executed them, _I_ knew just how to target the team. I _wanted_ to do those things.”

Steve looks down, jaw tensing. Finally, there’s anger on his face, but it’s wrong, all wrong, because it isn’t directed at Stiles. Steve’s furious on _behalf_ of him. He grips the railing on the bed, the metal creaking slightly under his strength as he meets Stiles’s gaze again.

“Her power was insidious and cruel,” he says. “Some of the others who were affected by it have told us what it was like. It was wrong. I’ve seen a lot of evil in my time, Stiles, and Julia’s ability was evil. That isn’t your fault.”

Stiles swallows, looks away. “Don’t.”

“Do you want to do those things now?” Steve urges. “Do you want to hurt any of us now? Do you want to stop us, get rid of us? If you weren’t under Julia’s control, would you have stabbed Allison?”

“ _No_ ,” he whispers. “God, no, _never_.”

“Exactly. Just because she made you feel like it was what you wanted doesn’t mean you actually _did_. Stiles, that remorse, that guilt you’re feeling, that just proves that it _wasn’t_ you. Any of it.”

Stiles closes his eyes, his breath choking slightly as he trembles.

Steve’s words hurt, each fervent reassurance a hot jolt of pain sliding between Stiles’s ribs. He means it, all of it, and Stiles wants to believe him, he wants so desperately, _achingly_ , to think that Steve is right, but he isn’t. His weakness, his blind spot, has always been the people he cares about and even if he can’t see it, _won’t_ see it, everything that happened…it _was_ Stiles. He’s covered in the blood of innocent people, he’s choking on the ash from everything he’s burned down, and the guilt, the roaring rage of remorse and anger and disgust, it twists and writhes inside of him, scorched and scorned by the idea that any of it is misplaced.

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs. “You’re still recovering, you need to rest. I shouldn’t have brought it up so soon.”

Stiles almost laughs because what _else_ were they going to talk about? The weather? Sports? Ninety-eight people are dead because of him. Stiles doesn’t get to hide from that fact just because he feels like fucking roadkill. 

He knows Steve won’t give up. He didn’t with Clint; after the Battle of New York, as the team had come together and grown to trust, appreciate and eventually like one another, Steve had been sure to prove that none of them blamed Clint, that none of what he’d done was his fault. 

He hadn’t allowed himself to rest until he found Bucky and brought him back home. He’d taken on the authorities, he’d gone up against the media and public opinion, he’d gone toe to toe with anybody and everybody who tried to vilify Bucky for what he’d done while under Hydra’s control. And behind closed doors, he’d spent so long working with Bucky, building up that trust and friendship again, coaxing his best friend further and further away from the Winter Soldier and back into his own identity. He’d thrown every single ounce of his strength and stubbornness into helping Bucky believe that it wasn’t his fault.

He’ll do the same with Stiles. He’ll keep going, keep pressing, keep trying to help and reassure him. He won’t give up, no matter what, because that just isn’t who Steve is. He never backs down from a fight, especially when it comes to someone he cares about. 

But for now, Steve goes silent. He doesn’t push again but he stays there, right at Stiles’s side, with their hands entwined.

***

The first nurse Stiles sees sends him spiralling into panic.

She bustles into the room, all kind smiles and a warm, efficient bedside manner, and asks him some questions before strapping a cuff to his arm to check his blood pressure. She adjusts his IV, informs him that a doctor will be by soon to see how he’s doing, and she fusses at his pillows for him to make them a bit more comfortable.

There’s something peaceful and almost maternal about her and she gazes down at him with understanding in her eyes. Her hand touches his hair, smooths over it gently, comfortingly, and suddenly, Stiles can’t _breathe_.

It’s Julia’s hand in his hair, stroking reassuringly. It’s her fingers cupping his neck, pulling him close to kiss his forehead or his temple or his cheek. It’s her leaning over him and he struggles to breathe, feels his throat close up as he scrambles back, twisting in the blankets, panic crashing through him. 

She backs off straight away and Steve is there, talking to him, trying to help, but it’s Stiles’s dad who manages to grab and hold his attention. He lifts up his hands, palms facing Stiles, and his lips are moving. 

“Count with me, kid, come on.”

Stiles stares at his dad’s fingers and he can’t speak, can’t shove any words out from his mouth as he wheezes and struggles to breathe, but he counts in his head as his dad says the numbers out loud, until they get to ten. Ten fingers. They do it again, and then a third time, until the blurriness edging Stiles’s vision eases and he stops trembling so violently. 

“Good,” his dad coaxes. “You’re doing great. Breathe with me, okay?” 

He reaches out slowly, telegraphing his every move so Stiles can pull away if he wants to, and he gently takes Stiles’s hand, pressing his palm over his own chest so he can feel the rise and fall of each breath. Stiles tries to mimic it, focusing on the rhythmic flow of each inhale and exhale until he manages to match his breathing rate to his dad’s, slow and deep.

The last embers of panic fizzle out, leave him empty and exhausted. Stiles pulls his hand back and crumples back down on the bed. He’s vaguely aware of his dad and Steve talking with the nurse, discussing things like _triggers_ and not touching his neck, and he’s alert when the doctor arrives, but he doesn’t pay much attention. Instead, he stares up at the ceiling. 

His first panic attack in years. 

He laughs, wild and hysterical, and he doesn’t stop until he breaks down into sobs.

***

It doesn’t surprise him that he dreams that night. 

He’s covered in blood, can taste copper and flesh between his teeth, and there are bodies at his feet. Too many to count, but he knows anyway: ninety-eight. It’s all he can see, bodies piled up on top of each other, covered in red and gore, their eyes open and vacant, staring accusingly at him.

He backs up and he skids in a pool of blood, lands on his hands and knees. He watches dark, thick red seep up over his fingers, swallowing his pale skin until he’s sure it will never wash off. He’ll be stained with it forever.

When he looks up, the bodies are gone and Allison is sat across from him. Her stomach is split wide open, guts spilling out into her hands, and she cradles them, lets her own blood pour out of the wound as she stares at him. He can’t look away and she doesn’t either, just holds his gaze, cold and empty, as she slowly extends her hands, offering him her own insides. 

He wakes up gasping, a cold sweat clinging to his skin. 

Steve is asleep in the chair and the room is otherwise empty. The window is open a little to let a breeze in and he can see the moon, the barest slither of silver showing between the slit in dark, heavy clouds. It’s going to rain; he can smell it in the air, clean and damp, sticking in his lungs as he catches his breath.

He sits up and looks down at his hands. They’re trembling slightly, skin pale and fragile in the dull moonlight, but there’s no red on them. He turns them over, examines every crease and line in his palms, studies his fingernails to make sure there isn’t blood crusted underneath them, but they’re clean. Yet he’s sure he can feel it, hot and wet on his skin, clinging to his flesh no matter how hard he wipes his hands on the hospital blanket.

He curls his fingers inwards, clenching his hands into fists until his knuckles strain and his nails bite into his palm. Staring up at the ceiling, he counts the tiles and focuses on breathing in and out until the trembling stops and his heartbeat slows again. 

He’s exhausted still but he knows he won’t be able to sleep again, so he carefully climbs off the hospital bed. He’s wearing a hideous hospital gown, but at least it isn’t backless to expose his ass, and he shivers as cool air hits his bare legs. The floor is cold underneath his feet, sucking the warmth out of his skin, and he has to grip the edge of the bed for a moment, certain his knees are going to buckle. He hasn’t really got the strength for this but he pushes forward anyway, moving to the end of the bed where a bag is resting on the floor. He doesn’t know who packed it for him, but he digs through it and almost sobs when he sees they’ve packed his Captain America sweatpants.

He has to lean on the bed as he changes into the sweatpants and a hoodie; his legs feel like jelly, too weak to support him when his body feels like it’s weighed down by concrete. He tugs on a pair of socks and shoes and lingers against the bed, taking a moment to gather himself before leaving the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

At this hour, it’s quiet; the corridor is lit up but empty. There are two nurses stationed at the desk. Even as shitty as he feels, Stiles is adept at going unnoticed, and neither of them look up as he quietly palms one of their security cards where it’s been left on the desk and leaves the ward.

He follows a long, narrow corridor until it opens up into a larger area, furnished with squishy chairs and vending machines, an unmanned reception desk taking up one wall. He looks at the sign to his left that labels the different wards and suites with arrows pointing in the right direction, finds the one Allison is most likely to be in, and heads that way.

He has to lean against the wall, using it for support as he forces himself to keep going even as his body wants to give in. He hasn’t got the energy for this and it’s slow going, an awkward shuffle down each corridor. The security card gives him access through the doors that are locked and the few nurses and porters he encounters don’t stop him. He doesn’t know if it’s the expression on his face or if they know who he is and don’t want to intercept him, but he’s grateful for it. This is something he needs to do.

He reaches the right ward and swipes the card to get inside. The lights are dim, appropriate for the middle of the night, and it’s so quiet. There’s something unsettling, almost haunting, about a hospital at night; empty and ephemeral. Stiles hates it, feels discomfort slither around his ribs, but he ignores it, glancing at the board on the wall near the desk. 

Allison’s name is on there, written in green whiteboard pen in a scruffy, block-letter scrawl. Room 12. 

Stiles walks straight past the desk and glances at the numbers on the doors he passes, turning right as directed when he reaches a fork in the corridor. 

Allison’s room is at the end of the hall.

For a moment, Stiles just stands there. The lights are low, dimmed to night time settings, and they gleam off the floor, cut slithers of pale pools across sage green walls. The corridor is narrow and empty, lined with identical doors, cut off with a wall at the other end. There’s a piece of art hanging on it, a realistic waterfall scene that’s probably supposed to be soothing. 

Stiles takes a step forward, then another. The clinical, antiseptic stink is sharp; he can almost taste it, cloying in the back of his throat. The temperature is set at that ‘just right’ level, not too warm and not too cold but somehow impersonal. He can hear the quiet _whoosh_ and hum of machinery, the tap of a nurse’s pen as she fills in paperwork at the desk, a clock ticking in the wall. The soles of his sneakers squeak on polished linoleum as he approaches Allison’s room. It stirs up echoes of memory, ghosts of a corridor just like this, universal and imposing like only a hospital can be. 

He feels like a child again. Small and ignored, hands clutching at each other as he walks alone and afraid to his mom’s room. 

He stops outside Allison’s door and reaches out, carefully pushing down on the handle. He bites his own tongue as it creaks, too loud in the quietness of the ward, but he keeps going until he can slip inside the room.

The light above the bed is on, casting a soft, golden hue over half the room. The TV in the corner is playing infomercials quietly; she must have fallen asleep before turning it off.   
She’s lying on her back, hands at her sides; the blanket is pooled around her hips and, underneath her hospital gown, Stiles can see the thick bulk of dressings and bandages. She’s hooked up to an IV and a heart monitor and she looks pale, dark circles under her eyes, her lips chapped and almost colorless. Someone has washed her hair for her; it’s still a little damp, fanning across her pillow.

Stiles stares at her for a moment, something sharp and brutal snarling in his chest. He has to pause, trying to breathe through the intensity of his guilt, before he can approach the bed and carefully pick up the chart there to flick through it.

The details of her injury are clinical and detached. Stiles soaks it in, reads about her surgery and treatment, looks over the list of painkillers and antibiotics she’s on. He checks the little updates, signed by various nurses, three different handwriting styles listing her blood pressure, oxygen levels, administration of medication and checks on the wound in her stomach. He reads it again and again, memorizing every last detail, etching it into his brain until, when he closes his eyes, he can still see each loop and swirl of penmanship.

Slowly, he replaces the clipboard and steps back, forcing himself to drag his gaze back to the prone, sleeping figure in the bed.

When they’d first joined SHIELD, it was something they’d both had to acknowledge and come to terms with: the danger of the job and the awareness that either one of them could end up hurt, could land themselves in a hospital bed.

He never thought he’d be the one to put her there.

A sob strangles in his throat and he clamps his teeth shut, gritting them until they ache from the pressure, and he presses his hands over his mouth, muffling the sound that’s trying to wrestle free. 

Part of him wants to reach out, wants to touch her, to feel the warmth of her skin and the reassuring throb of her pulse at her wrist, but he doesn’t allow himself to actually do it. He can’t bear to touch her, not when he can still feel her blood on his hands.

Instead, he staggers back, back hitting the doorframe with a dull throb of pain. He closes the door and tries to step away from it but he can’t hold on to the thin, frayed threads of strength anymore; he sags, exhausted and aching, eyes stinging with the urge to cry but he _can’t_ , he hasn’t got the right to cry, to feel like this, not when he’s the one to blame for it all.

Strong arms catch him before he can crumple to the ground, solid and warm as they hold him up and tug him against a familiar chest. Stiles struggles, chokes on a sob, and Steve doesn’t fight him; he stops trying to hug him but he doesn’t let go, either, grip gentle but steadying as he keeps Stiles upright.

“It’s okay,” he says quietly. 

“ _Okay_?” Stiles repeats, the word a cracked whisper. “Steve, nothing is ever going to be okay again.”

Steve reaches one hand up and goes to cup the back of Stiles’s neck, but he pauses, clearly remembering what happened with the nurse. But Stiles doesn’t feel panic or alarm, just a broken kind of desperation, and he leans into Steve’s touch, shaking slightly.

Steve’s fingers curl gently around the back of Stiles’s neck, skin warm and rough and achingly, beautifully familiar. His thumb strokes in a soothing, repetitive arc against the base of Stiles’s skull and he pulls him in again; this time Stiles doesn’t pull away, just presses his forehead against Steve’s shoulder and muffles his sobs into his shirt.

“It doesn’t seem like it now,” Steve murmurs. “But it _will_ be okay. I promise. I’m here for you, Stiles. We’re all here for you. It’s gonna be okay. I’ve got you.”

In the middle of an empty hospital corridor at two o’clock in the morning, Stiles shakes apart, and Steve holds him the whole time, catches every single piece so he can gently put them back together again.

Eventually, Stiles pulls back, empty and raw with exhaustion. Steve keeps his hands on Stiles’s shoulders, thumbs drifting gently over his collarbones, and gazes at him quietly for a moment.

“Couldn’t sleep, huh?” he finally says.

Stiles shakes his head. “Not tonight.”

“A nurse told me you helped yourself to his security card,” he says, attempting a smile. “I should have warned them you’re a menace.”

“Please,” Stiles replies, voice thready, but he latches on to the half-hearted try at humor. “Like you’ve never done that.”

“Can’t say I have, actually,” Steve answers thoughtfully, a glimmer of familiar teasing in his eyes. “I also can’t say I haven’t thought about it, though.”

Stiles smiles tiredly, swaying slightly on his feet. Steve shifts to curl his arm around Stiles’s shoulder, supporting him as they head back to Stiles’s own room. He wordlessly plucks the security pass out of Stiles’s pocket and deposits it on the desk as they pass it, offering the disgruntled nurse a single nod before guiding Stiles back to bed.

He doesn’t return to the armchair he’d been sleeping in when Stiles left; instead, he settles in the hideous orange chair right next to the bed. He tucks the blanket over Stiles and adjusts the pillows, then just stays there, holding Stiles’s hand. 

Stiles gazes up at the ceiling. Sleep claws at the back of his eyes, pulls relentlessly at his exhausted body, but he doesn’t give in to it. He forces his eyes to stay open and stares at a pale yellow stain on the ceiling tile directly above him. 

Slowly, the sun slips into the sky and the hospital starts to wake up, shaking off the liminal atmosphere of the night, and Stiles doesn’t sleep.

***

Halfway through the morning, after Stiles manages to convince Steve to go get some proper rest, after he manages to swallow down some bland hospital food, and after a nurse adjusts his IV since he’s now keeping hydrated on his own, Coulson shows up.

He isn’t wearing a suit. Stiles has never seen him look dressed down; he’s seen him in his field gear for a mission and he’s seen him in workout clothes to train, but he’s never seen him in casual, comfortable clothes. He’s wearing faded jeans, a navy sweater, sneakers, and actual _glasses_. 

Stiles knows his decision to wear civvies rather than a suit is deliberate. Everything Coulson does has a purpose; no matter how small or trivial an action might seem on the surface, there’s always a smart, carefully thought out reason behind it. 

He lets himself into the room, closes the door behind him, and picks up Stiles’s chart, looking it over. A few months ago, before all of this, before _Julia_ , Stiles would have made a remark about that, would have sassed Coulson for how inappropriate it is for his boss to help himself to a peek at his medical chart. Stiles knows that’s precisely _why_ Coulson does it; he’s waiting for Stiles’s response and when it doesn’t come, he glances over at him, expression bland but eyes sharp, calculating.

He puts the chart back and slides something out of his pocket, holding it out. Stiles glances down at the slim leather wallet, knows exactly what is inside, and he doesn’t reach out to take it.

“I thought about easing into this conversation, but I know you wouldn’t appreciate that, so I’ll cut to the chase,” Coulson says. “Welcome back, Agent Stilinski.”

Stiles stares at his badge for a moment before dragging his gaze back up to Coulson’s face. “So is that what we’re doing?” he asks. “Pretending none of this happened and I can just return to SHIELD like everything is okay?”

Coulson places the badge on the bed next to Stiles’s hand and sits down in the chair. He leans forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees. 

“No,” he replies. “We’re not pretending anything. I’m here to make it clear that you weren’t at fault. You’re still an agent of SHIELD, Stiles, and when you’re ready, you can come back to us. Dr Garner is staying at the base for a while. He’s been helping Julia’s other victims. Kowalski’s staying there too, so we can help him. We can give you the support you need and when you’re ready, you can get back to work.”

Stiles knows what Coulson is doing. He’s playing it down, reminding Stiles that there were other agents under Julia’s control, reminding him about Kowalski, in the hopes that it will convince Stiles to accept the help and support. He’s playing on Stiles’s desire and need to help and protect people, the motivation that had driven him to join SHIELD and go out into the field in the first place.

“So I’m not fired,” he says.

Coulson shakes his head. “No.”

Stiles picks up his badge and holds it out. “Then I quit.”

“No.”

Stiles jerks slightly, caught off guard. He frowns. When Coulson doesn’t move to take the badge, he lets it drop into the older man’s lap instead; he can hardly bear to touch it, feels like his fingertips burn where they grip the cool leather. 

“You can’t just say ‘no’ to that, Coulson. Consider this me handing in my resignation.”

“Denied.”

“You can’t _deny_ my resignation.”

“I don’t accept it,” Coulson replies evenly. “You need space. I understand that. Consider yourself on leave while you do what you need to do. But when you’re ready,” he stands and places the badge gently back on the bed, right next to Stiles’s hip, “SHIELD will be waiting for you.”

Stiles stares at him, incredulous. There’s a lump in his throat and he can’t speak past it, can hardly breathe, and Coulson offers him a polite nod before he just… _leaves_. He fucking leaves. 

When the door closes again, Stiles sags back into his mountain of pillows and stares at the wall. He supposes he should have expected Coulson’s response; the guy is as stubborn as he is calculated. 

That faith in Stiles, the determination to see him as a victim rather than a criminal, the insistence on welcoming him back with open arms, it’s ripping him apart, slowly and viciously.

He hates it.

***

Natasha and Clint visit that afternoon.

Stiles is watching TV, the channel set on some inane sitcom, all bright, sunny colors and canned laughter flowing through the room. He hasn’t been following the plot or the jokes, just staring at the flickering images on the screen, and he doesn’t look away when the door opens.

He knows who it is, automatically picking up on the footsteps, categorizing who they belong to. He can’t seem to shut that part of him off, no matter how hard he tries. He just wants to not be himself for a while.

Clint sits down in the plastic chair, but Natasha makes herself comfortable on the bed, curling her legs underneath her, her hip tucked in against Stiles’s thigh. She’s wearing a pair of Allison’s sweatpants, the hem rolled up slightly on her ankles, and a sweatshirt Stiles recognizes as Bucky’s. She looks tired, messy hair pinned back from her face, and Stiles wonders how long she’d had to wait, tense and terrified, until a doctor told her Allison would be okay, wonders how often she’s been sat at Allison’s bedside since.

“I got you a muffin basket,” Clint says. “But it kinda got eaten.”

Stiles looks at him. “How’s the nose?” he asks blandly.

He smiles, sharp and toothy. “Fine. Got a nice little bump now, but I think it makes me look ruggedly handsome.”

Stiles glances away. He can’t bring himself to look at Natasha; the last time he saw her, he’d split open the stitches on her back and knocked her out with a dendrotoxin grenade. He’d stabbed the woman she cares about. If he’s honest, he’s a little surprised there isn’t already a knife in his throat.

Her fingers find his leg and Stiles goes still, but she just loosely curls them around his ankle, thumb stroking over the bump of bone. Stiles stares at the TV and he doesn’t dare blink, hardly dares to breathe. Neither Clint or Natasha speak after that, but they stay, a quiet, steady presence in the room.

Bucky joins them after twenty minutes. He doesn’t say a word, just moves to sit in one of the armchairs, propping his feet up on the little coffee table as he leans back. He watches the TV, posture deliberately loose and relaxed, and gives a quiet yawn. Stiles watches as his eyes slip shut, watches as his breathing slows and evens out, and incredulity snaps through him.

Bucky _falls asleep_.

After that, he isn’t surprised when Tony, Thor and Sam join them. He watches, resigned, as they crowd into the small room. Thor’s broad shoulders alone seem to eat up so much space and it’s too much, on the edge of overwhelming, but Stiles stays silent as the other man reaches out, resting a solemn, heavy hand on Stiles’s forearm.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Like shit,” is Stiles’s succinct response.

A small smile twitches on Thor’s mouth. “You should rest. Sleep will aid your recovery.”

He sits in the other armchair but doesn’t look at the TV; instead, he gazes out of the window, watching clouds slink across the sky. Sam places a polystyrene cup on the table next to Stiles’s bed – _coffee_ , thank fuck for that – and leans back against the wall. Tony drags the other plastic chair closer to the bed so he can sit next to Clint.

“I’m offended, Bambi,” he says. “The science in this show is fucking _awful_.”

Stiles doesn’t reply. He watches as Tony slips his phone out of his pocket and taps the screen; a small hologram fills the air above it, JARVIS displaying a blueprint for what looks like upgrades for Natasha’s Widow Bites. Stiles narrows his eyes slightly, fully aware of what Tony is doing, but the older man doesn’t even glance at him as he settles into his work, making some adjustments to the blueprint, talking quietly to JARVIS. 

Steve is the last to join them. He takes up point on Stiles’s other side, hand resting on the bed, his fingertips brushing against Stiles’s. Nobody speaks; the room is still and calm, the cheesy sitcom and Tony’s voice flowing through the small space. 

Bruce’s absence is imposing.

Stiles rolls onto his side and closes his eyes. He’s surrounded by most of the team and he knows his dad and Scott will visit later, knows that Allison is in the same building, hurt but alive. 

He bites his tongue and tries to pretend he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating.

***

He isn’t surprised when a therapist visits him the following morning.

She looks young, with long, glossy dark hair and eyes that are both kind and understanding, and sharply _knowing_. Stiles looks at her, watches as she takes a seat and folds her hands over each other on her knee, and says nothing.

“It’s nice to meet you, Stiles,” she offers. “I’m Marin.” 

She doesn’t say that she’s a therapist, but she doesn’t need to; Stiles is familiar enough with them by now that he recognizes it instantly. 

“You work for SHIELD,” he intones.

“Actually, no,” she replies. “But I’ve helped them in the past. Coulson contacted me; he felt that Dr Garner’s more…personal relationship to SHIELD and Agent May might make you uncomfortable with talking to him. So he asked me if I could help.”

“And can you?” Stiles asks evenly. “Help?”

“I have experience with similar situations.”

“You specialize in mind control. Kinda fucked up that you _can_ specialize in mind control.”

She smiles. “I wouldn’t say I _specialize_ in it. But I’ve had clients who have been through something similar to you.”

“That’s nice, but it doesn’t answer my question.”

Marin gazes at him for a moment. “I’d like to help,” she says finally. “I hope that I can. But it depends on you.”

He appreciates the honesty. He doesn’t appreciate that she _knows_ that; has probably seen his file, probably memorized his personality profile, and she just read it on his face as easily as if she was reading a book. She knows he responds best to honesty, whether it’s good or bad, and she’s using that. 

“How do you feel, Stiles?” she asks. 

“I’m fine.”

“Well,” she says. “That certainly makes my job a lot easier.”

Stiles gives a surprised snort at the joke and she smiles slightly, eyes sparkling as she holds his gaze. There’s a challenge there and he feels himself rise to it, feels the urge to test her, to knock her off balance, just for a moment. He wants to see if he _can_.

“So, are you gonna visit your brother while you’re in the city?” he asks.

She doesn’t flinch. “Maybe,” she replies calmly. “You know him, don’t you? He’s your friend’s boss.”

“He has a photo of you in the animal clinic,” Stiles replies. “I gotta ask, does the whole weird, cryptic thing run in the family, or is that just him?”

“We get it from our father.”

“No, you don’t.”

She smiles slightly, dark eyes gleaming. “No,” she agrees. “We don’t.”

Stiles looks at her and feels something settle inside him. It’s not quite trust but it’s close. She looks back at him, calm and patient, and she arches a slender eyebrow when his posture relaxes a little.

“So. Did I pass?”

He snorts. “Are you sure you don’t work for SHIELD?”

“Definitely not,” she replies. “Unsurprisingly, it’s difficult to work for an industry that churns out people who are trained to _not_ talk and spill their secrets when you talk and listen to people for a living. But I help Coulson out sometimes. If he asks nicely.”

Stiles nods. “So if he asked nicely for a report on whatever I say to you…?”

“I’d remind him about client confidentiality,” she replies. “Possibly with a ‘fuck you’ thrown in there, just for a bit of fun. The only person I’ll consult with is your primary doctor, but I won’t share anything you say to me.”

“They want to know if it’s safe to discharge me and let me go home,” Stiles says. “Or if they’ll need to hide all of the sharps first.”

She nods. “They want my professional opinion before they consider it.” 

“They’re aware I could just…leave? If I wanted to?”

“Of course,” she says evenly. “So. How do you feel, Stiles? Really?”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, shrugging slightly. “Yeah, apart from the not sleeping, the nightmares, the constant, crushing fear that something terrible is about to happen.”

“It’s called hyper vigilance. The persistent feeling of being under threat.”

“I know. Anxiety has been a nice, suffocating constant for me since I was a kid.” He pauses. “I had a panic attack. I feel like I can’t breathe. Like I’m drowning.”

Marin nods slightly. “So, if you’re drowning, you’re trying to keep your mouth closed until the very last moment. But if you choose to not open your mouth, to not let the water in…”

“You do it anyway,” Stiles replies. “It’s a reflex.”

“But if you hold off until that reflex kicks in. You have more time, right?”

He shrugs. “Not much time.”

“But more time to fight your way to the surface.”

“I guess,” he allows.

“More time to be rescued.”

Stiles swallows. It’s hitting too close to home; reminds him of drowning under Julia’s control, trying to hold on, trying to keep his mouth closed and fight off that reflex, waiting to be saved, to be rescued. He wonders if that’s what they’re trying to do now. If that’s what _Marin_ is going to try to do. 

It’s too late for that.

“More time to be in agonizing pain,” he points out. “Did you forget about the part where you feel like your head’s exploding?”

“If it’s about survival, isn’t a little agony worth it?” she counters.

Stiles runs his tongue across his teeth and looks away. “What if it just gets worse? What if it’s agony now and then…then it’s just hell later on?”

“Then think about what Winston Churchill once said: if you’re going through hell…keep going.”

Stiles’s gaze snaps back up to hers. She looks at him calmly, waiting patiently as he processes her words, and he shrugs slightly.

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” he replies. “This is me. Keeping going.”

***

A couple of hours after Marin leaves, Stiles’s doctor swings by to tell him he can be discharged the next morning.

***

Scott and Lydia visit in the afternoon.

Scott gets comfortable on the bed, tucked in against Stiles’s side, bony knee digging into Stiles’s thigh as he wriggles obnoxiously, making himself at home. Stiles rolls his eyes but allows Scott to draw him close, tucking his head against his best friend’s shoulder.

Lydia eyes the ugly plastic chair with blatant disdain and sits down in one of the armchairs instead, knees crossed primly. She gives him an update on Allison and, when she sees the way his expression closes off, she starts talking about work instead, launching into a snippy rant about one of the professors she’s had to work with recently.

Before they leave, Scott pauses and says, “Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Isaac asked me to give you these. He says he’ll visit you soon, when work is less crazy.”

He presses a bundle of red wool into Stiles’s palms and offers a wave before following Lydia out of the room. Stiles looks down at the gloves Isaac’s knitted him, red just like he promised, the wool expensive and warm and soft. He slips them on and they fit perfectly. Of course they do.

He swallows down the lump in his throat and tugs the gloves off again, setting them aside. He’s received texts from Derek, from Boyd and Erica and Isaac, had a voicemail from Jackson and a Facebook message from Malia. Even Derek’s sisters have checked in on him. 

They’d all been kind and concerned, offering well wishes and promises to visit when he’s ready, but he hasn’t answered them. He can’t bring himself to. He can’t bear the thought of the look on their faces. They’re not used to this life, with SHIELD and superheroes and fucked up powers like mind control. They won’t understand. They shouldn’t have to try, shouldn’t have to see him and pretend they’re completely okay with everything he did, simply because Steve or Scott says it wasn’t Stiles’s fault.

They say they don’t blame him. But they should. 

***

The next morning, Stiles forces down another bland hospital breakfast and dresses comfortably. He tucks Steve’s dog tags in his pocket, the metal clinking quietly when he moves, and he’s packed and waiting, more than ready to get the hell out of this hospital when Steve and Stiles’s dad arrive to pick him up.

He has to lean on Steve slightly for support as they make their way out of the building. His dad talks quietly, idle chatter about the city and the weather and how Melissa’s doing, and Stiles listens and nods politely as he climbs into the back of a taxi with them both.

The tower is ruined and uninhabitable. Stiles feels guilt, raw and sharp, sink it’s teeth into his guts when he feels a cool flash of relief at that. He won’t have to go to the tower, won’t have to face the team again and feel suffocated by their insistence on being around him, on _trusting_ him, on pretending like everything will be okay if they just keep saying it will be. Instead, they go to the apartment Steve is renting until the tower is reconstructed, where it will just be the two of them.

His dad carries Stiles’s bag as Steve helps him into the apartment. It’s small but nice, tidy and homely. Stiles sits down on the couch and Steve disappears into the kitchen to make coffee.

“I can stay,” his dad offers. “My hotel is just five minutes away, but I can fix the three of us some dinner.”

“Dad,” Stiles tries for a smile. “I just got away from shitty hospital food. Please don’t condemn me to your cooking.”

“Ass,” John accuses, but he’s smiling. “I mean it, though. I can stay for a bit.”

Stiles shakes his head. “I’m okay, really. I’m just gonna rest and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His dad nods and leans in, wrapping him in a secure hug. Stiles embraces him back, clinging to him for almost a minute, pressing his face against his dad’s shoulder as he accepts the familiar, bittersweet comfort. It sets off an ache in Stiles’s chest and he closes his eyes, hugging his dad tighter for a moment before finally letting go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, kid,” John says, gently cuffing the back of Stiles’s head. “Get some rest.”

Stiles nods and watches him go. Steve joins him on the couch and presses a mug of coffee into Stiles’s hands; decaf, because he’s supposed to avoid caffeine while his body finishes recovering from the effects of the serum. He lets the heat of the scalding porcelain bleed into his palms, searing up the bones in his arms as he closes his eyes and leans into the solid weight of Steve’s body.

“How do you feel?” Steve asks softly, curling an arm around Stiles’s shoulders.

“Like shit,” Stiles replies. “I need coffee. And ice cream. Like, that triple chocolate fudge stuff with marshmallows. And then sleep. Preferably in that order.”

Steve leans close, pressing a tender kiss to Stiles’s temple. “I can arrange that.”

“You stocked up on my favorite comfort ice cream?”

“No, but I can go get some.”

Stiles shakes his head. “You don’t have to.”

Steve gently tips Stiles’s face towards him, dropping a brief, soft kiss to Stiles’s mouth. It’s so sweet and careful that the ache behind Stiles’s ribs splits open into something harsher, more vicious, chewing away at his bones as he gazes at Steve.

“I want to,” he says. “I won’t be long.”

Stiles nods slightly. “I love you.”

Steve smiles at the words, small and soft and infinitely pleased, and he kisses Stiles again before getting up. He throws on his jacket, fishes his keys out of the bowl near the door, and heads out. 

Stiles sits still for a moment, listening to the quiet ticking of the clock near the TV. He looks down at his coffee and then knocks it back, ignoring the sting in his mouth and throat from the scorching liquid as he sets the mug on the table and gets to his feet.

His old backpack, the one he’d used when he was in law school, is tucked in the closet with some of Stiles’s other things that had been rescued from the safehouse. Not much had been saved from the remains of the tower, but Stiles doesn’t need them anyway. 

He fills the backpack with the necessities, packing only what he absolutely needs. He can’t help but fold up one of Steve’s shirts, however, and tuck it underneath his own jeans.

He knows the code to Steve’s safe and he feels like an asshole when he punches it in and opens the door. There’s money stacked up inside. Even with his cards, Steve prefers to have physical money, safely locked up but at hand if he ever needs it. Stiles takes half of it, shoves the money into the backpack and zips it up. 

His ICER is inside the safe too. He reaches out, runs his thumb over the cool metal, and his heart _aches_ , twisting and writhing in his chest. He remembers opening it, remembers the warmth and happiness of being gifted with his own, customized ICER from the team. He wants to take it, but he can’t. He won’t be able to use it and he can’t bring himself to keep it just for the sake of sentimentality; he doesn’t deserve it. He leaves the ICER in the safe and closes the door, stepping back. 

There’s one last thing he has to do.

He looks at his wallet, at his cards and his ID and the various coffee loyalty cards he’s accumulated, before snapping it shut, the battered, faded _Batman_ logo staring up at him as he leaves the wallet on the bed. His SHIELD ID goes next to it. 

Swallowing, he slips Steve’s dog tags out of his pocket. They’re warm, metal smooth against the skin of his palm, and he gazes down at them, drinking in the sight of the familiar tags, running his gaze over the letters stamped into them. Carefully, reverently, he places the tags on top of his SHIELD ID and steps back, slinging the strap of his backpack over his shoulder.

He doesn’t leave through the front door. Instead, he swings out of the window and onto the fire escape. He glances back, takes one last look into the apartment, one last look at Steve’s dog tags, glinting slightly in the sunlight that spills into the room. 

He feels almost numb and it’s welcome, a relief from the guilt and anger that’s been lashing inside of him for the past few days. It gives him the strength he needs to turn his back on the window and climb down the fire escape. 

It gives him the strength he needs to walk away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone is interested in my playlist for Allison (specifically, her identity as Artemis, which you see a hint of in this fic and will be explored more in the spin off focused on her), you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/14AbTcTNZxaSNUV0rQlSBN

**Author's Note:**

> \---> I'm also allirica over on tumblr; feel free to come say hi! I'm currently accepting prompts for Teen Wolf, Marvel and Agents of Shield.


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